Stephyblue Original: Loved and Lost
by Stephyblue
Summary: Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry are the perfect couple. Fifteen years into a marriage that will seemingly last forever, a tragic accident tears them apart. After reaching the end of her rope, Quinn is blessed with the chance to relive her life again. With this chance she can right her wrongs, live life to the fullest and change the course of her fate... or so she hopes.
1. To Do it All Again

A/N: This is the last piece of the trifecta of WTHI and DITW. This was the story that started it all. For those of you that read Loved and Lost: Dissonance, this was the first version written in 2009 so you'll see flickers of where Dissonance came from. Anyway, here it is - the unedited original version of Loved and Lost.

Oh, and like all the Stephyblue Original series pieces, this is a finished Fic. I will update one chapter a night after I check the spelling is on point and any serious errors in grammar have been corrected. As always, thank you for reading and hugs. ~Stephy

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Prologue

To do it all Again...

Quinn sat at her mahogany desk scribbling notes from the appointment she had just left. She preferred to write her own notes, since residents lost the essence of the message a patient was trying to deliver. She paused, reading back over the symtomlogy, making sure it was cohesive from the few notations jotted down during the appointment. Bed side manner seemed to be disappearing all around her, which is why a majority of medical offices had seen a decrease in patient visits and her book was always full.

A gentle knock on her office door pulled the blonde head up. Beside the door, a glimmering smile appeared. It was Rachel.

"How is your day going?" Quinn immediately asked, standing from her seat with the speed of a southern gentleman. Rachel had that effect on Quinn. She always had, always would. The blonde circled the desk, giving a soft kiss before the brunette had time to answer.

"I have had better. I'm tired today." She smiled as Quinn offered to help with her coat. Once off, she hung it neatly on the hook beside her own. "I thought maybe I should come by and see the doctor."

Quinn nodded sketching a cheeky grin. "Good thing you did."

Rachel indicated the package by the door. "I brought you something to liven the place up since you have been spending more time here than at home with me."

Quinn peered past her to the small package, white daisy flowers poking past the plastic florists wrapping. Rachel turned regarding them, "I figured you needed a little sunshine in your day with all this rain."

Quinn regarded her face as they focused on one another, and the satisfied smile that spread across it at seeing Quinn's joy over the gesture warmed the blonde. "Thank you." Quinn brought her closer. She filled the blonde's nose with the scent of Channel and shampoo, her lips lingering just out of range. "I think it is wonderful to get flowers on days like this, from a pretty girl like you."

Rachel smirked, running an unconscious hand through her dark hair, arranging some invisible imperfection to feel worthy of the compliment. Rain pelted the plate glass window beside them, obscuring the New York skyline. "I like giving flowers to you. It confirms that your mine without having to urinate on the office furniture."

It started with laughter and a chaste kiss, which fully evolved to include intent within the first five seconds of their mouths meeting. Tucked within the solitude of the corner suite, they were comfortable to drown in each other's adoring attention.

Quinn felt Rachel's heart pick up against her chest, drumming a warm beat she had become used to over the years. As a physician, she had grown to understand so much about the human body that it was utterly enthralling how this particular one worked.

She was after all Quinn's whole world; and as any impeccable student, she studied her very rigorously in all aspects.

Rachel broke the kiss, her dark eyes centering in on Quinn's as her breathing steadied. "The flowers will die without water; we should put them in a vase." She pulled back a little to more easily see the blonde's expression. She held it as secret that her eyesight had gotten worse over the last three years and had finally broken down to get glasses.

Glasses she never wore and lost in bed when she read at night.

Quinn assumed that she would eventually accept them, so she held back on her condemnation and sleepily set them aside when they ended up stabbing her at night.

She kissed the tip of Rachel's nose, eliciting a delicate million watt smile. "I feel bad leaving them here to wilt and die. I would be so much happier to see them at home."

Rachel nodded slowly, "will I actually get you to myself for a little bit? I feel so alone in that huge house without your silliness to keep me occupied when I'm not working."

"I had Cecilia clear my calendar later this afternoon, tomorrow and this weekend, so at least for a little bit- I'm all yours." Quinn spied the glint in her infinitely dark eyes that she never hid. "I'm glad that makes you happy."

"Very much so, it means you can go with me tomorrow to the obstetrician."

Quinn pulled her face close again, grazing her lips against the brunette's with feathery touches. "Why do you think I did it? You know I could work non-stop forever for you and us," She splayed her hand across Rachel's small belly, caressing the skin there, "for all of us."

"That's why I love you." She whispered against Quinn's lips, the faintest touch of air moving between them. "No matter how brilliant you are, you will never learn that you are all I need."

The blonde smiled ruefully, recognizing the truth in her words. "And I love you, Mrs. Fabray, because you are the only one who knows how truly stupid I am." Outside the rain abated and hazel eyes saw brown ones drift to catch note of that fact. "Leaving me so soon?"

"The sooner you see these poor people, the sooner this poor person can see you." Rachel pecked another kiss before moving out of her arms. "Besides, someone has to make sure these flowers make it home safe and alive for you to enjoy." She snagged her coat from the rack before Quinn could intercede, and left the blonde to fixed her lapel absently as Rachel stood before her.

"I promise I'll see you no later than four, and tonight," Quinn slide her hands up from the coat, through Rachel's hair, curling the silken locks around her fingers, "I'll have wine, you'll have juice, and we will sit in the tub and languish in the feel of one another."

She flashed those rows of perfect white teeth. "I'll hold you to that." Rachel gathered herself and moved toward the door, looking for all the world like the famous singer she was.

"I'll hold myself to it, Rachel."

She winked, and pulled the door open; pausing briefly to look back. Quinn leaned against her desk, watching, content to wear the smile Rachel always put on her face. The blonde blew a kiss. "Three hours." She whispered.

Rachel's hair fell over her shoulder, catching the office light and shimmering softly. Her eyes were warm with promises. "That's three too many Quinn." With a sigh she added, "I love you."

And she was gone, leaving the room so much colder without her presence.

Quinn went back to her work, finishing the chart and closing the folder. She looked up at the door again after a moment, replaying the image of Rachel turning toward her. She was elegant and beautiful, simple except for the verbosity of her language. Rachel was preternaturally brilliant and intuitive, something Quinn sorely lacked.

She looked at the clock, 1:23.

Dutifully, because the patients wouldn't see themselves, Quinn got up and straightened her white coat. Suddenly, she was hit with an inexplicable feeling, one that very nearly topped her frame. She sat back in the chair.

Quinn couldn't put her fingers on it exactly, except in that moment she felt a wave or a snap of something, an emotional and physiological unhinging in her chest. It felt like she had dislocated her ribcage. The blonde put a hurried hand to her chest to steady the sudden elevated breathing.

After a moment it subsided and she exited the office, turning toward the patient rooms. Her pager beeped catching Quinn right before she entered Mrs. Marshall's room. Her golden eyes stared down at it blankly.

EMERGENCY. CALL ME NOW. BLAKE

Blake Jones was a friend and confidant, a doctor at Saint James Medical Clinic right up the road. He had gone through med school with Quinn, had spoken at Rachel and her wedding, and had been a constant companion in the best and worst of times. The blonde cocked her head, dislodging a long strand of straw colored hair as she stared at his text, confused by the language.

She located her phone and dialed the number, waiting for it to pick up. It did almost immediately. "Quinn?"

"Yes, what's going on Blake? Another hard case you need me to consult on?" She fully intended on a laugh, he was always laughing.

Instead his voice broke, causing a quiver to run the full length of her body at the emotion in his voice. "Get here now. It's Rachel." He broke again, static rising up on the line to cover his manliness, but Quinn didn't hear it, not really.

Instead she heard Rachel's voice and saw her eyes and felt the keys in her hands as she ran blindly toward the back elevator.

Straight to the bottom Quinn rode it, panting heavy dizzying breaths, hot tears threatening to rend her unable to see anything. She ran further, out the patient pull up, down the street.

The panic set in as sobs caught in the back of her throat, choking her. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see – just ran. Quinn ran until she felt that her legs would give out and then ran harder and faster after that. Passing cars stuck in traffic she cut between them, leaving them in a trail of agony and broken pieces of my heart. Rachel had to be okay, Quinn screamed silently.

She was just there...

Up ahead the cause of the traffic presented itself. A police barrier. Quinn circumvented it to hail a cab on the other side where traffic was moving freely; however, she came to a frozen stop when white puff balls caught her eyes. She blinked.

Strewn across the wet road were little white daisies, innocent to the juxtaposition of a broken car and a pool of blood beside them. Quinn couldn't understand what she was seeing, those weren't her daisies, we they? She took a step forward, her knee threatening to crumble from an old cheerleading injury and the abuse she had just committed to it.

The steam from a mutilated radiator spewed in the air, filling her nose with a sweet sick smell. But- It was the blood that crashed the images together in Quinn's head; Rachel's blood, drawn in rivulets across the wet grainy road. She felt the world spin for a frightening moment, losing her footing to stagger and drop to the pavement.

And then she was up again, running – two more blocks before her, spreading out like an endless marathon. Quinn hit the emergency entrance four minutes later, sputtering and unable to breathe.

"Quinn, she's here." Blake yelled over the din of the emergency room. There were no pretenses as she ran past the nurse's station. Everyone at St. James knew her, as she had mentored at least twenty of them. There was no sound, nothing. There was just a void of silence that absorbed everything that meant anything and took it all away.

"Where?" Quinn croaked; her vision tunneled as she hyperventilated.

She turned the corner, nurses and doctors rummaging and moving around the trauma room. There was no panic in their motions, they had done everything they could. Rachel was slathered in bandaging that was too thin to hold back the blood.

Her exposed body was too broken to hold back her spirit.

Quinn grabbed at her hand, firming her lips to it; hoping that maybe it would stop the maddening pain in her own heart threatening to rend her to pieces. That perhaps her touch would be the anchor to Rachel's reality. The monitor continued to tone evenly and without thought or care of the people whose work she interrupted, Quinn collapsed to the floor beside the discarded wrappings.

And Rachel left Quinn's life in the same way she came into it – as an angel.


	2. The Beginning at the End

Chapter 1

The Beginning at the End

Quinn had spent the last three months wondering what she would have said to Rachel if she had had ten more minutes with her. She lay sprawled across the floor, her body humming as the deadly concoction took effect. She had so many things she wanted to say. Her eyes blurred with a finite number of tears. Even on the day she buried Rachel, she couldn't speak a single word, and she mourned that she couldn't do it all over again.

Quinn had buried her wife on a bright Monday, having made the trek back to Ohio in a haze. Rachel's fathers had been devastated, the pain they felt a mere echo of the agony she felt, but she consoled them as best she could. She had put white daisies on Rachel's coffin, a poetic cyclical act that didn't abate her heart in the least.

Santana and Brittany had made a motion of standing in support, flying from Los Angeles after hearing the news through the grapevine. Quinn had nothing to say to her friends, they just looked at each other over the hole in the ground. After an hour the Latina, her eyes red with tears and the sobbing blonde, had simply turned away to give Quinn peace.

Had she been strong enough, Quinn would have told Rachel that not a day went by that she didn't thank God for the bubbly brunette being in her life. That Quinn felt their relationship was blessed by God despite the myopic views of man.

Once Quinn was home, the reality of her loss coalesced around her. The smells and sights of everything were stamped in Rachel. For the first few days she buried her face in Rachel's pillow and cried until she slept and then cried again when waking brought reality. Eventually, the fabric began to smell less like Rachel and more like misery. She had then resorted to perfume, which became an every day affair.

It wasn't until the third day of her spritzing routine, that she understood the chemistry lessons she had received twenty years before. Perfume smelled different on every person's skin, and that unique chemical reaction would be something she could never have again. She remembered staring at the bottle of Channel and with as much fury as she could gather; she shattered it against the bathroom mirror.

That was just the beginning and Quinn wasn't one to pretend that everything would be okay. No, she fully embraced the fact that the world had been ripped from her. She knew what she was doing when she found herself laying on the sofa, tears leaking from her eyes, her phone resting on her ear. It was just another sleepless night, this time in their living room, where she was losing her sanity.

Quinn pictured Rachel before her, in the hospital. If she could have done it again, she would have whispered that if anyone deserved to go to heaven it was the forgiving young woman who had suffered so much at Quinn's own hands as a child and now laid broken before her.

Weeks had passed, and her medical practice continued to run, filling her pockets with substitute physicians doing her work. She could have done it before, she should have. It was thoughts like that which reduced her to broken moaning sobs that never seemed to end.

It was also the dreams- The images. The questions of: What if Rachel had put the flowers in the vase? Would she have been at the intersection a little before 1:30, or not? Would she still be here? Quinn felt more tears slip down to the chocolate colored leather sofa beneath her as she pressed repeat on the phone message.

"Hi, you have reached Quinn and Rachel Fabray, please leave us a message and we will be happy to contact you back at our soonest opportunity."

And their baby. No, Quinn couldn't even think about that.

She felt cold admitting that there could be other children, but never another Rachel. No, it was Rachel and only her that she missed. The loss created a broken disconnect in the fabric of Quinn's reality that made her want to die.

She would have told Rachel that she wished she could take all her neglect back. And if given the chance again, she would have lived her life differently. She would have yelled less and loved more. She would have abused the most important three words in the world, every single day.

The news reports didn't help. Little makeshift alters set up in Rachel's honor at the intersection. Pictures in effigy lined the news images and fans singing and playing cuts of Rachel's performances. Quinn cried every time she heard Rachel's voice tin through a CD player, backdrop to an interview about why the ethereal brunette mattered to a stranger. The newscasters said that the boy that hit her was reported to have a blood alcohol level of .21. He had apparently broken up with his girlfriend and went to a bar. In his regret over losing his girlfriend, he had stolen Quinn's wife.

She resorted to praying he would die and burn in hell. Even God, Quinn reasoned, would kill that boy for what he had done or she would do it herself.

Quinn stared up at the ceiling, tracing patterns in the mahogany wood beams. Her biggest regret bubbling up to the surface in a small mewing sob.

She wanted to erase the loneliness and solitude Rachel had felt as she walked alone up the avenue on that last day, carrying a gift of love that hadn't truly been accepted.

When a police friend had let Quinn know that the 21-year-old college student pled guilty to the DUI and Vehicular Manslaughter charges, Quinn and Jack Daniels had become friends. She shut the windows of their condo and drew the curtains, sealing herself off from the world. They had given him five years. Five years! Less than half of the time she and Rachel had built a life together.

After that news, Rachel's sweet angelic voice on the message machine hadn't been able to help; only the slow burn of alcohol could send her to a peaceful oblivion.

And the weeks turned into months.

Quinn meandered around the dark abode, thirty six pounds lighter and a hallow shell of who she was before. She found herself staring at things; at pictures, at their bedroom, at the kitchen – remembering things. Puzzling at the alien landscape in a haze, wondering where it had all come from, and what it felt like before.

She had lost the ability to imagine Rachel in her life, except when the dreams came during her few attempts at sleep. Quinn poured the Jack down the sink knowing full well that despite the agony she would feel, she couldn't allow those deeply ingrained memories to disappear. She cried, watching the amber liquid circle the drain and vanish. She was left with nothing but the darkness.

Quinn felt her heart rate finally slowing, a calming euphoric peace passing through her. Maybe, pitched here between life and death Rachel could hear her. Perhaps her thoughts would permeate the void between worlds.

"Baby?" She whispered to the shadows in the corners of her vision as they flicked back and forth before her eyes. "If you can hear me, I'm so sorry." Nothing changed and that is what had broken her spirit.

When Rachel died, for two days, the world had stop to take notice of the beautiful prodigy struck down in her prime. She expected something more in a world worth living in than two days of insincere commentary. The blonde expected the stars to paint empathetic sorrow across the heavens in a supernova. She expected a cataclysmic schism in the center of the earth to be drawn in effigy to the pain in her heart. She wanted the internal mechanism with the planet to cease, grinding it to a halt.

But nothing came- just the two days of pictures and remorse and then the world continued to spin- people fell in love, got married, had babies and died.

Quinn sniffled and turned her eyes to the picture beside her. Tears left trails down her nose and temple as she focused on the image of Rachel and her standing happily together. The brunette was smiling, her hand resting gently on Quinn's middle, as the blonde kissed her temple.

That was all she had ever needed, Quinn remembered her saying, realizing it was all she had ever needed as well. And without it…

Quinn mutely screamed as she felt a tightening in her chest that had nothing to do with the rampaging emotion. She focused her eyes on Rachel's face as the pain increased, stealing the breath from her lungs. She tried to hold the image.

Without that love… there was nothing.

Quinn hitched her breath, her body going into panic as she felt her hands go numb. Slashed in cold sweat she convulsed weakly.

Nothing mattered in this whole entire world.

She asked silently that God please forgive her for not being strong enough and if possible please let her see Rachel again. Even if she had to go to hell for doing this, just once was enough. She wanted to sit on a cloud somewhere… and say goodbye.

The last thing Quinn Fabray saw was the melting image of the only person she had ever truly loved and the infinite pain and darkness that followed.


	3. I'm Here, Now What?

A/N: (a)allgood2 – This was actually the very first version of this story written in 2009. The version that is being published is the rewrite of this and that was written over the last 4 months right here on fanfiction. ;)

(a)Bugsy1014 – yeah, not as much detail cause this was my first fic and I had no idea what would upset people. So it's really watered down, certainly not as in-your-face graphic as the rewrite.

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Chapter 2

**I'm Here, Now What?**

A swirl of light flickered weakly. Quinn's rational mind dismissed it as the final synaptic firings of her brain as it died. It took five minutes, she reasoned. More shapes formed behind Quinn's closed eyelids, hazy broken images that refused to solidify. As they grew in her field of vision Quinn thought that perhaps she was heading toward the light of Heaven. She imaged herself reaching for it as the images became clearer in her head.

_A candle flickered low beside the bed, and then sputtered out. It was dark, and familiar. The smell of clean linens and warm skin rising up to lull Quinn's senses. It was their bedroom. Quinn didn't bother to lift her head, except to shift slightly and kiss the long expanse of bare back she propped her head against. "I love the way your heart sounds." She listened to the even slowing rhythm as her wife drifted in and out of consciousness, her eyes focused on the soft strands of hair fanned across the skin._

"_I love the way my heart feels." The brunette purred belatedly, breathing a little deeper as she exhaled the remaining excitement from their love making. She stretched an awkward arm behind her, placing a soft hand against Quinn's side, squeezing gently._

"_Mmm." The blonde replied automatically. She wormed her way up, spooning her body against Rachel's. "You feel so good."_

_A slight laugh escaped the form in her arms and she tightened her hands around her pillow case. Rachel sighed, "You always know how to make a woman feel good." Her brown eyes blinked the fuzziness away and she rolled over, meeting Quinn's gaze. "I love you so much." She lifted a trained steady hand to caress Quinn's jaw line, her knuckles and wedding ring a soft and edged sensation that sent bolts down the doctor's body._

"_I love you too sweetheart." Quinn ducked her head and kissed those perfect full lips, rolling Rachel into her back so she could ravage her again._

The image shattered and Quinn grabbed for it frantically, willing her mind to keep the moment. She knew it was her pathways firing fleeting images as her brain died, but why couldn't she die to that one? Another picture flooded her senses, drowning her.

_The bright sun was blinding as she stared up at a patch of clouds. Quinn reasoned that this is what heaven must look like. She glanced over to her right, from her vantage point, only able to see a loose bun of brown curls and a very well formed leg swinging back and forth._

_Quinn sat up a little and leaned back on her hands, her mouth moving without her ability to control it. Beside her, Rachel was humming softly, her fingers tracing the picnic blanket they shared. The image was years younger than the first, to Quinn's indulgent mind. "Do you ever think about kissing me?"_

_The surprised brown eyes lifted to Quinn's. Her teeth chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. "I think that women that have close bonds feel a natural tendency to pull together in a physical intimacy." Rachel shrugged, suddenly materializing a piece of grass to focus on in her hands._

"_But do you think about it?" Quinn prodded guiltily watching the nervous phantoms of emotion pass on the face before her. Inside her heart she felt a strange tug, at the game she was playing._

"_Yes."_

"_Is that all?" She whispered, falling to her elbows beside her new friend and drowning out the whole world except for the hammering of her heart. She could smell Rachel's spearmint breath from the gum she had been chewing._

"_Is that all for you?" The brunette countered, crossing her arms before her defensively as she leaned on her elbows. "I don't like you questioning me like this without some give and take. It makes me very uncomfortable Quinn."_

"_I think about more." The blonde offered, after a pause, not sure why she said that. Was it true?_

"_I do too."_

"_Do you want to kiss?" She asked as unromantically and awkwardly as she had ever said anything in her life._

"_Yes." Rachel's voice was very small as she stared at the blanket beneath her. Her cappuccino eyes flitting back and forth in nervousness directed downward. A period of silence passed between them, inches apart._

"_Are you going to do it or are you going to sit there and talk about it." Rachel's voice came out clear and strong, flirty- as she raised her eyes. Quinn froze. Suddenly, her whole world was gripped in the intensity of a kiss. It wasn't just any kiss, she realized as she pressed forward against the young woman's mouth. This kiss was the kind that epic poetry was written about._

_It was the kind of kiss where your body knows before your head that it had finally arrived home. And Quinn was sad she had been beaten to the punch._

_But she was not sad at all as she shivered at newly found feelings, her body betraying her with rushes of heady desire that it seemed only the diminutive brunette could unlock. It was enthralling and exciting and she wished she would have done it years and years before._

_Then she realized what she was doing, and she pulled away, severing the connection. "What are you doing Berry?" She edged icily standing up and dusting off her jeans._

_She felt herself walking away when there was nothing that Quinn wanted more than to be right there in that moment again. She left Rachel in the grass on a perfect spring day._

Farther and farther backward she felt her mind pulling, birthing and then killing moments of her life. A jolt of dread prickled the hair on Quinn's arms, she was trapped. The Phenobarbital and anti-nauseate hadn't worked. Instead she was still alive, trapped between the world of the living and the dead in a coma; held captive to be tormented forever with elusive images.

_Quinn felt the familiar scratch of her cheerleading skirt as she walked beside her friends. They flanked one another, like a wall of ego, moving through the halls. People moved and darted out of their way. Quinn saw Rachel with her back turned to her approach. She smiled evilly at the taller Santana beside her._

_Her lips moved with precision, "Santi, watch this." She smudged on a perfect smile and lifted her arms, cross checking the brunette in the back with her books when she didn't move in time_

"_Get out of my way, beast." She deadpanned with a grin, as the brunette spun in surprise and pressed her back to the flanking lockers, as they passed her._

"_I was here first, you bitch." Rachel yelled, sending students scattering in all directions._

_Quinn, stopped in the middle of the hallway, and she turned back to the skulking girl. Rachel's normally tan face was pale, and she seemed shocked her mouth had betrayed her. No matter, Quinn reasoned, "Excuse Me, BERRY!" Her voice got louder and louder until she bore down on the brunette. Santana and Brittany flanked her escape as Rachel moved away only to be cornered between a wall and the lockers._

_The dark eyes before her were resigned to whatever torment Quinn was going to give her. "That's right, you little… thing." Quinn began. "You look sorry you said that. You better be sorry you said that." Quinn flicked a finger under the lowered chin, digging her nail into the tender skin there, making the face before her wince. "I ever hear you speak to me again I promise you, I'll end you. You are nothing and you always will be."_

_She let go of the forlorn face leaving Rachel to lower her chin to her chest and raise her books up defensively. "San?" Quinn raised an eyebrow to the taller Latina. "I think we should leave the little diva here to practice her new role of shutting the fuck up." Quinn arched an eyebrow and turned, leaving Rachel to slink away into the shadow._

It went on like that, until Quinn swore she could feel tears burning her face with shame. Her hindsight had tempered the outright evilness she used to have, but not here. Here in the dark ragged edged memories were cast in a hard truthful light. She was as ruthless and sinister as she had ever been.

How could Rachel have ever forgiven her?

Cross checking again, slushy again, condescension, indignation; cruel words formed on her lips before she could stop them. The looks that passed over her face, like Rachel had been nothing, how her teenage mind had manipulated God's word and made it a weapon in which to torment the young Jewish girl.

It was sick.

Quinn realized as she was forced to watch, over and over, that she must have died and gone to hell. When she finally saw herself in elementary school breaking a crayon that Rachel had wanted, she had had enough! Quinn struggled against the haze in the back of her mind.

She willed herself to open her eyes, and surprisingly they followed her command, focusing on a dimly lit ceiling that looked nothing like her and Rachel's home in New York or a hospital. The soft ticking of a clock entered the stillness of her mind as she lay there, confused beyond thought.

Quinn bolted upright, her body moving faster than it had in a long time, slamming her knees into her chest. It should have hurt but it didn't. Her motions flung the blankets off of her, depositing them in a wave beside the bed. She was in a room. Quinn looked around, too dark for her to truly see anything of meaning. Had she made it to heaven? If so, where was Rachel?

Wiping her eyes the blonde got up from the bed, but misjudged where the floor was and slammed to the ground. What the hell, she questioned as she gritted her teeth. She sat up her head coming to just higher than the over stuffed mattress. She looked around confused. Why would heaven have overstuffed beds that she hated except for when she was a kid?

The blonde swallowed on the knot that rose up into her throat, blocking the air from her lungs. She looked down at herself, a silk white nighty covering her body; her legs sprawled with a deep tan and toned muscles. Quinn tried to remember back to the last time she had a tan, it was four years ago, in Bermuda with Rachel.

This was not Bermuda. She covered her mouth with her hand. She could figure this out; she swore to herself, it was most likely the neurons trying to purge electric currents from her central nervous system. Yeah, that was it. A tug at the back of her mind chided her.

Quinn stood, using her good knee to steady herself. Upon completing the motion she realized she had no bad knee. She did a lunge, pressing herself up into a standing position. "Wow." She whispered, never fully realizing how amazing it felt to have two knees that worked. This really was heaven when there was no arthroscopic surgery on the horizon.

As she marveled at the completeness of her physical body her eyes landed on a picture of three faces. It was herself, Santana and Brittany. Quinn's smile disappeared. She reached up, running her hand through her hair as she approached the images. She picked up the glass frame and dropped it a moment later. It clattered to the desktop.

This was her old bedroom. She padded across the room to her dresser, white knuckling the edge of it as her image rose up to meet her in the ghostly light. Her own face shocked Quinn into a breathless moment of incredulity. It was her, but not her. It was the Quinn Samantha Fabray that had smiled at her in pictures from high school. She remembered sitting on the sofa with Rachel six months before, cuddling and laughing mournfully at the stupidity of this time in her life.

She touched her face with her hands, the skin soft and youthful. She focused in on her eyes, not tired like hers always were. She was young again. But more than young, she was a teenager. Quinn put her hands on her stomach to calm the anxiety that rampaged through her.

She looked down at her flat belly. Quinn grabbed the thigh length nighty and ripped it off her, staring at her naked body. The toned, non-pregnant, teenage perfect body she had once had stared back at her. Even her breasts were still perky. A crazy look of insane excitement passed through her and she met her own eyes.

"Oh. My. Fucking. God."


	4. All the Wants in the World

Chapter 3

**All the Wants in the World**

Quinn sat at her desk, the night slowly coming to an end. She scribbled frantically and as she finished a page of lined paper in her binder she flipped the page and began anew. She had to write it all down, everything she remembered from her life before. If she was going to have a chance at making this one better – different, she had to remember to fix everything.

That is, she paused, if she didn't **actually** go to hell and would never have a chance to make things better. Quinn shook her head silencing her thoughts. She couldn't think that way. She had to assume that God or someone had heard her prayers as she was dying and that she was getting another chance to save the woman she loved. First thing was to stop being so monotheistic, she had never really given Rachel enough religious support.

She stopped, her pen pausing over the sentence containing her vision of hitting Rachel in the hall with her books. God, she had been such a bitch. If she had already done half these things it **was** going to take five years for Rachel to heal. Quinn frowned and shook her hand out, returning to her writing.

One thing is for certain, she wasn't going to sleep with Puck this time.

She wrote down, 'make the first time sex with Rachel better'. Then she underlined it as the images came back. She could definitely have been much smoother and less confused. Quinn cocked her head, thinking about all the great memories they had laughing about that first time. She crossed it off her list. Might as well have some inadequacies she mused, her thoughts straying.

She pressed the binder closed and then lifted her laptop from the case beside her desk. She wondered if yesterday she was the same Quinn she was in her past life; the vicious passive-aggressive bitch that had made it her personal mission to torture her future wife.

She opened the computer and as it sparked to life she tapped her nails against her front teeth. That was something she hadn't done in a while. She twisted them in her lap. She was nervous, scared and so utterly thrilled she could hardly contain herself.

Was she actually going to get to see Rachel? Tears stung her eyes as she waited for her background to populate. She was going to be able to talk to her and hug her and… she lifted her eyes, as her computer toned the windows song. She typed in her password and it came up with an error. She sighed, of course her password at this point in her life wasn't Rachel1996*12. She typed the correct one, subbing out Rachel's info for Finn's.

It made her feel dirty and upset for no reason whatsoever and she cursed her stupid teenage hormones. Quinn wiped at her tears as the computer booted up. She had to keep it together. If she saw Rachel and just started crying her eyes out she wouldn't be able to do what she wanted to do. It would all be a waste if Rachel thought she was nuts, or a stalker; Quinn stared at the ceiling willing her emotions into check.

After a moment she felt the pain ease, to be replaced with more dirty feelings as she pawed through her files on the computer. It was so alien to know that it was hers, but not hers at the same time. The years had changed her so much.

She opened the folder labeled: Save it for God.

Inside were minutes from her celibacy club meetings, Quinn scanned the dates and double clicked on the one from a week before. This was the one Rachel had gone to. Quinn's heart picked up, pounding out a cacophony of rapid beats. She caught her breath. She remembered those closing words as if they had been spoken yesterday, "girls want sex as much as guys do."

It was so true, especially as teenagers. Quinn wiped tears as they dried in the corners of her eyes. Oh, and at 30, she mentally corrected. That was when women peaked anyway, which was perfect since she and Rachel were only four months apart, she born in September and Rachel in December. A satisfied smile spread over her face as she remembered.

She closed the computer file and logged onto the internet, hoping that she was enough of a bitch to have Rachel's daily videos saved as links in her computer. She didn't. Quinn typed out Rachel's name and did the search. It came back with 150 results found.

Her baby had certainly been industrious.

Quinn stared at the results and her hands started shaking as she manipulated the mouse pad and clicked on the first link, posted that night. A video file started to play.

A close shot of fabric came into view and suddenly it materialized into Rachel backing away. Same knee highs she had always worn, same curled dark hair. Same smile, that instantly sent Quinn into tears again. It was her, and she was alive and well and, oh so beautiful. She hated herself so much. Knowing she had made this young woman cry many times before she was able to grow the fuck up and get over the attraction she felt.

"For tonight I want to sing a piece from the musical Rent, from the 1990's." Rachel teetered a little on her feet, animated as always. "I picked this song because I think it really encapsulates how I'm feeling at this junction in my life."

She hit the CD player beside her and straggled piano chords of "seasons of love" chimed into the silence of Rachel's room. Quinn steepled her hands in front of her mouth as she watched through burning eyes.

When Rachel ended the song she did so with a smile and she put her left hand on hip, other hand waving. "Thank you for watching and hope you enjoyed." She fiddled with the video camera and pitched Quinn's screen into darkness. The blonde watched it again and again, finally pausing the video on the bright smile at the end.

Quinn dried her eyes for what felt like the hundredth time. A silly giddy smile rushing up to catch her in mid sob and she smiled the brightest cheek burning grin she had since this little angel had escaped her.

Quinn leaned forward, pecked out a few words, and then reread her message she posted on the webpage. That would start the ball of amends rolling. She went on to the next video.

Quinn drove her old subcompact toward William McKinley High School. Her stomach lurched and she kept threading her hands along the steering wheel, tightening and releasing them like she was revving a motorcycle. Ten minutes. She would be there in ten minutes. It wasn't enough time for her to prepare for what to say.

"Hi Rachel." She whispered, glancing into the rear view and changing lanes. "Hello Rachel." She repeated. She knew it was important to say the brunette's name, not call her a nickname. It was something Rachel had told her was the dividing line between when things were cold, and when they weren't. Quinn had said her name.

"Good morning Rachel." Quinn continued to repeat different phrasing and she silently thanked her overly talkative wife for the road map she had given Quinn to the locks on her heart.

In her nervous excitement, she had left the house fifty full minutes early so when she pulled into the parking lot of William McKinley High School she was almost alone. She slid the car into park, surprised to see Rachel's car parked on the other side of the lot.

Quinn had taken the place where she had always remembered parking, reserved exclusively for cheerleaders and jocks.

Wow, so many years and she still remembered. She backed the little red subcompact up and scooted it over right beside Rachel Berry's car. The silent move was enough of a social statement to basically equate to a scream. She cut the engine. "Oh my god, you can do this Quinn." She steadied herself. "You already did it before." She reminded herself with pointed clarity that she had asked Rachel out, dated her, seduced her, married her, had the baby talk – and impregnated her. "And I'm nervous over this?" She laughed at herself, running a hand over her face.

She measured her reflection in the rear view mirror. She had pulled clothing from her closet hunting for something understated enough to be seen as casually cool, but still attractive enough to catch Rachel's eyes. The brunette had confided that she was attracted to her during this time period, so why not go for it. She had said her favorite thing was how clothing hung off Quinn's body back then.

Quinn had pulled out a white fitted blouse that was tight around her breasts and loosely flowing around her waist. She had paired it with some khaki capris and slip on shoes. Even now, she once again debated on hair down or up, which she twisted from the position on her shoulders, looking at herself in the mirror. She sighed and let it fall. It was going to be now or never.

She chewed her lip as she pulled the key from the ignition. The door creaked open and she slid her books off the passenger seat. She couldn't remember what classes she was taking and to be honest she really didn't even care. Her eyes fell on Rachel's old car that sat before her. Should she tell the brunette not to become too attached because it was going to get stolen in a few years?

Quinn walked past Rachel's coupe and let a finger glide over the trunk, smiling a little at the gold star stickers in the back window. She kept moving, entering the empty quad area and heading toward the office. She needed a print out of her classes. She passed between buildings her eyes catching the slamming of the choir room door. She froze, no one else was here, well not anyone who would go in there, Quinn corrected. It had to be Rachel.

Just being this close, knowing that her best friend and lover was only thirty feet away made Quinn's knees begin to tremble. She changed direction, entering the building and the easily remembered smells of high school rose up around her. She heard a soft sound, a long lingering chord that reminded her so painfully of when Rachel practiced at home that Quinn could hardly contain herself.

She moved forward, absolutely transfixed, her eyes focused on the doorknob of the choir room. She didn't even care how it looked if anyone saw her. Another chord and a powerful voice rose up swallowing her consciousness. The blonde steadied her hand on the door and turned the knob gently.

The brunette's back was to Quinn, her head bent as she focused on her hands. Rachel wasn't a pianist, but she used basic root chords to accompany her voice well enough to fake it. Quinn slid into the room, her heart hammering a beat to the melodic song Rachel was singing. She closed the door softly.

The lights weren't fully on, bathing the area around the piano in a flickering halo of incandescent lighting. Quinn stood with her back against the far wall in the dark. She stared as Rachel shifted, crossing her legs at the ankle and leaning a little further forward to rest her left elbow on the instrument. Quinn swallowed as the shortness of her argyle skirt was proved when that slight motion untucked the material and let it hang down just enough to make the image decent.

Rachel started singing again, practicing the same part, a little higher this time. The blonde wanted to reach out so badly, just put her hands on Rachel's shoulders and feel the warmth of her body. Quinn closed her eyes in remembrance of a future that hadn't happened, listening to the song Rachel was practicing.

_Quinn pressed open the studio door, sliding into the sound room. She sat in the high backed leather chair and leaned across the sound balancer. Rachel, on the other side of the plate glass, was singing into the microphone. She hit a note and grimaced in frustration soundlessly. The blonde reached over and opened the speakers allowing the sounds of the studio to punctuate the room._

_A shaky breath warbled through the surround sound. It was amazing how much you could learn about someone when they sang. She could feel the fear and sorrow in that breath, the pride and power in her hummed pitches as they came through. Rachel tried to mentally tune herself, starting at middle 'c' and scaling upward._

_Quinn turned the sound down a little as her wife took a deep breath._

"_Don't be afraid, to let them show, your true colors. True colors, are beautiful, like a rainbow."_

_Rachel hit the last note lower than normal, running it flat and losing pitch. Quinn frowned, it was all mental, she knew. Something her wife had to work through. She had been sick with pneumonia and she was mistaking the lack of use for damage. Rachel tore her headphones off and threw them to the ground. She fisted her hips with her hands, staring down at the floor of the sound studio._

_After a moment, she retrieved the headphones and slid them on; readjusted the pop filter and planted her feet. Quinn closed her eyes and listened to the forty or so takes. It was early and she was glad she had spent the extra twenty grand to sound proof the room so as not to wake the neighborhood._

_Finally, the rust was starting to come off, Rachel speeding up the tempo. The notes coming easier, more fluid. She found herself humming a harmony against the intensity of Rachel's pitch perfect intonation._

"_See your true colors, shining through – ye-ah!" Her voice slid through the notes, lyrically pulling on Quinn's heart strings like a harp. "Your true colors, are beautiful, like a rainbow."_

_Perfect, Quinn smiled absently to herself. Always so perfect. She dragged a finger up to the two-way feed button and popped it._

"_You're beautiful baby." Quinn mumbled sleepily, her eyes watching Rachel jump and turn to the glass. Her hair was twisted into a crazy bun that exposed that she didn't take the time to brush her hair before she came downstairs into the studio basement._

"_How long have you been there?" She questioned pressing a kiss to the glass, leaving a smudge of lip gloss in pretty bow lines on the glass. Quinn snorted a giggle, Rachel couldn't brush her hair, but she could get lip gloss on._

"_Long enough. Welcome back to the world of singing, angel." Quinn congratulated from her position, staring into the lit brown eyes that smiled at her from the other side of the glass._

Minutes passed as Quinn cloaked in the body of her younger self listened to the voice that with 10 more years training would take Broadway by storm. She sniffed back on the tears she felt coming, she couldn't lose her composure. However, it was enough sound to stop Rachel; the brunette turned to pin Quinn with her startled gaze.

Those were the same eyes that had shot a look at her through the plate glass; however now they were absent of the love she had found there for as long as she could remember. The blonde about screamed for interrupting the beautiful moment.

"What do you want, Quinn?" Rachel sighed, collecting her music. She flipped open the hot pink binder to the left of the music stand and started stashing the sheets away.

Quinn panicked as she realized Rachel was leaving. "No, wait, don't go!"

She felt her voice crack and she swallowed down on it. Rachel watched her warily and she resumed her seat on the piano bench, this time facing Quinn. She regarded her with calculating dark eyes. "Quinn, I really must insist that if you want to discuss something with me, you need to do it soon because I have other things I need to attend to before going to French."

Quinn melted a little for two reasons. Firstly because of the absolutely perfect cuteness Rachel had when she was nervous, and also because her hormones reminded her that when Rachel spoke French in bed it was **very** sexy. "I'm sorry. I know you're busy, but this will only take a second." Quinn didn't know where she was going with that, but she knew it was important for her to validate anything Rachel said.

"What?" There was a little less venom and a little more fear. She glanced around like she was going to get attacked from the side.

"No one else is here." Quinn clarified as she moved forward and dropped into the closest chair she could get into. She could smell Rachel's hair and skin having known it so well for so long. It was strange how different and yet familiar it was. Something else was there too, a different perfume. "I just want you to know, that in difference to what I have said before I think you are so talented and I'm happy I could hear you sing this morning."

The diva beamed a little and then raised an eyebrow. "Why are you saying this to me? Please forgive me for being skeptical regarding the authenticity of your words, but I find it hard to believe that you can go from telling me yesterday that I would end up never having a future in anything, to saying what you're saying now."

Quinn frowned and wished that she could say the real reason. How terribly insane would that be? "I just say what I say and do what I do because I want to be accepted." She stated the rationale, clasping her hands before herself. She told the truth that had taken her five extra years to learn. She left out the part where it was also because she loved Rachel that she pushed her away. "I realized just now that I don't like who I am."

Rachel digested this silently, which surprised Quinn. Her wife had spent high school as Quinn remembered an absolute motor mouth. "I'm sorry."

The blonde choked on her own saliva in surprise, "Why are you saying you're sorry?" She felt an inexplicable tightening in her chest when Rachel looked at her with those soulful brown eyes.

"Because I never realized how hard it must be to feel so little confidence in yourself that your whole meaning is based purely off of an existential definition of how you are perceived by others." Rachel frowned, "that is the way high school popularity is orchestrated after all."

It was true, Quinn concluded. When she was younger she had completely based her self worth off what other people thought of her. She sighed realizing she would never have been ready for Rachel's blunt observations as a **real** teenager. "Don't apologize for that."

"Despite your rather interesting ways of showing your feelings, I still know that you deserve the apology because you really are a good person at heart." She smiled a little; it was very fragile, like she expected to get hurt as it came out of her mouth. "No one deserves to feel that way."

Quinn felt a little smile come to her face too, "you're right; however, no one should ever feel badly for being who they are either." It was so easy to fall back into the routines, the echoed smiles and the close proximity. She realized she had scooted forward and was perched literally on the edge of her seat, her knees dangerously close to the brunette's in proximity.

Was this going to be the moment that changed things between them? She could feel Rachel's eyes on her. Quinn ran a deliberate hand through her long blonde hair, taking her time to make it frame her face perfectly. She let her smile melt into her hazel eyes, using as much emotion as she could pack into the swirling green color to express the infinite love she felt. "I'm the one that is sorry, Rachel. You deserve so much better from me." She added the second part softer.

As much as Quinn wanted to make her dramatic exit in that moment, and leave Rachel wanting more, she couldn't stand. She felt her eyes well up at the surprised and happy face before her. "I'm really ashamed about everything I ever did to hurt you." Quinn wheezed and then cleared her throat, sealing the wall of emotion back in its cage. This conversation wasn't supposed to happen for four more years.

"Quinn?" Rachel hesitated and then tapped her hands on her thighs, drawing Quinn's eyes to the smooth skin she had felt so many times in the future.

"Yeah?"

"I forgive you."

Quinn spread a thin smile. Rachel always did.


	5. Standing on the Edge

Chapter 5

**Standing on the Edge**

For a week Quinn Fabray treaded the line between innocent flirting and intentional torture. She didn't know who she was torturing more. Quinn discovered she had Spanish two doors down from Rachel's French class and they walked together every morning. From there they went through the 200 wing to 212 for Algebra, and then Science. When lunch ended, they went their separate ways, but every morning Rachel was hers.

On Monday morning, they had shared their moment and Rachel had forgiven her. Just like that- without hesitation and without remorse. Even in the heat of such terrible pain Quinn had caused her, Rachel had just let it go. It was her way, it always was, and on more than one occasion Quinn had abused that to the point where she didn't think she could ever have it back.

Although, when it came to Rachel, Quinn had forgiveness in spades as well. Though right at that moment, as Quinn stared at Rachel in science, she couldn't think of a single thing her wife had done wrong in the 12 years they had been together.

On Tuesday, they had met for lunch and Rachel had conned Quinn to sing a song with her. Then Rachel did something that she had never done, not once. She gave Quinn the lead part and sang a devastating harmony to Quinn's breathy bluesy style.

It had been amazing and made the older wiser and no less susceptible Quinn fall even deeper in love with the beautiful woman that Rachel was going to become and apparently already was. It was a rare moment where the diva, who bowed to no one, made a very loud statement: Someone was worth more to her than accolades.

By Wednesday they had exchanged phone numbers and spoke almost nonstop. Little text messages here and there, brightened an otherwise empty day when they weren't in class together.

On Thursday, the looks and proximity warnings started to escalate. Quinn knew what was happening. She had more than enough experience to know. She had pushed Rachel too far and now there was no going back. When Quinn caught her eyes, behind them was a myriad of thoughts that turned the brown in them fiery and contemplative. Something she hadn't been expecting. Something she knew she was rushing, but couldn't stop.

So on Friday, when her morning breakfast buddy met up with her in the music room before school with a Starbucks coffee a tea for herself and a muffin to share, Quinn should have been prepared for what Rachel was about to say.

"I want you to have a sleepover at my house tonight. I think it would be very fun for both of us." Rachel said, placing the coffee on the piano and staring at Quinn expectantly.

At first it all seemed benign, "That would be fun," Quinn whispered looking over and snagging the coffee from her position on the top of the piano. She smiled at the idea of painting toe nails with Rachel again. She took a gulp, gratefully. "Thank you."

Rachel didn't move. "I feel as though you haven't understood my meaning, so I will try and elaborate." Rachel gestured with her hands trying to ramp the words out of her mouth. Quinn watched her interested. "I believe that under the guise of us both being female, a sleepover will allow us some _alone time_."

It was the inflection on the 'alone time' that drove the spike home for Quinn. She almost spit out her coffee. "Um… well, I… um…" and then Rachel's soft hand was on her lower leg, daring her to come apart at the seams.

Quinn, a lifetime older in reality had to stop and think about the reality of the situation, leaving the silence to stretch inappropriately long. Was it ethical for her to even think about it? To even imagine sleeping over at Rachel's house and doing what she was thinking of doing? Was it right? After all, she was a wolf in sheep's clothing being that she was actually twice Rachel's age. She had no right to be half as turned on as she was in that moment; sitting in her teenage skin as she felt her whole body vibrate at the notion of those hands all over her.

There was no bashfulness to Rachel's advances, and that left it up to Quinn to play the role of the adult, which she was – and desperately didn't want to be. "You know Rachel," Quinn slid off the piano, landing neatly beside her friend. "I absolutely understand what you are saying." She set the coffee down. How was she going to manage this one, she wondered?

"So, yes?" Rachel asked hopefully, and Quinn didn't have the strength to break her heart. "It would be very interesting to talk to you openly and feel out the situation between us."

Again with the inflection on the key words that made Quinn's head spin. She ran a hand through her blonde hair, straightening the locks. What the hell was she doing?

So she found herself staring at the brunette in science, watching the pulse point of her neck hammer out the rhythm of her heart. Rachel liked when Quinn kissed there, it made her nipples hard. Quinn snapped her head to focus on her book, what the hell was she thinking?

She was going through with it! She wanted to go to Rachel's house and fool around with her. Another part of her torn psyche reared its head.

Why not have sex with Rachel? After all, she had been married to her, made love to her thousands of times. It wasn't like she was going to take her virginity and then dump her. No, she was going to use the extra sixteen years of skill she had acquired to make the brunette crumble to pieces.

Quinn hesitated a glance back over her shoulder, this time meeting glowing brown eyes who were thinking the same thing. Oh holy shit, Quinn sighed. She really didn't have a choice. If she didn't accept the invitation, she was going to hurt Rachel. If she did, she was going to rush the poor girl, not that she really needed rushing, Quinn noticed. Rachel smiled coyly, her hand resting on the hem of her already short skirt and tugging it up a quarter of an inch for the blonde's benefit.

Quinn swallowed audibly.

So the rest of the day all she could do was sit uncomfortably in her seat and imagine all the times her and Rachel had done things. What they did, how they did it, how it felt, how Rachel sounded, smelled, tasted.

Rachel had been the only person that allowed Quinn the weird desires she needed. Quinn didn't like to talk outside of the bedroom, but she loved it inside. She would ask Rachel how something felt, or tasted, or what she wanted, and the brunette would offer everything. Quinn especially liked the descriptions of what she felt when Quinn touched her. Here Rachel became an absolute scholar with the English language. It was like phone sex on steroids.

Quinn went mindlessly through the rest of her day, skipping Cheerios practice for the third straight day. She went to her locker and opened it. A small note fell out. Quinn picked it up.

_Quinn,_

_Hope you are still headed over. I really can't wait to see you._

_Please call me before you get here, my dad's are going out to a play and I'll need to grab the door._

_See you later hot stuff,_

_Rachel_

And her dad's were going to be gone. Quinn felt like her heart was going to leap out of her chest. Should she even bother going home to pack stuff? Should she just go over? She knew from when her and Rachel moved in together that the woman had more sleep clothes than anyone else she knew.

Quinn picked up her phone and punched her home number, "Hey mom. Going out with the girls and sleeping over. See you tomorrow."

Before her mother could answer she shut the phone. Done. But seriously, what the hell was she doing? She continued to ask herself that as she slid into the car and turned over the engine. She knew exactly what she was going to do.

The afternoon sky was filling with clouds and by the time she was four blocks form Rachel's the drizzle had started. When they had lived in New York they had enjoyed a night similar to this one. Quinn stopped at a red light, her hands drumming on the steering wheel.

_The fire was burning low and Quinn was grateful for it. It cast a warm glow over the body of her wife. Rachel straddled Quinn's hips, her head tossed back, hips rocking gently. Back dropped against the fireplace, Rachel looked like the angel namesake Quinn called her. Her body was glistening and quivering before her._

_The blonde reached up and with feather touches caressed the arching shoulders, and down Rachel's back, sitting up enough to kiss the space between her clavicle. "How do you feel, angel?" Quinn whispered her tongue licking the perspiration dotting Rachel's neck and shoulder._

_"So good…" Came the breathy reply. It was rare that Rachel wanted this, she preferred Quinn's fingertips, but never one to complain with an amazing view Quinn was giving her exactly what she wanted. Quinn brought her hands around, cupping Rachel's breasts, running her palms against the hardness of her nipples as she sat back against the sofa. She teased the flesh gently in her hands eliciting soft moans from her lover's mouth._

_"Tell me what you feel…" it was Quinn's favorite line and Rachel smirked a little leveling her head out. Her wild tendrils of dark hair framed her and Quinn as she pressed her forehead to the tall blonde's._

_"You should know what I'm feeling doctor." Rachel whispered with a small grin. "You know how deep this is and what anatomy its hitting." For effect Rachel lifted up and then slid back down before Quinn's rapt gaze. At the breathless look on Quinn's face she kissed her nose. "What do you want to hear about?" Her lips grazed Quinn's cheek and ear. Her hot breath slid down her neck._

_The blonde used her nails to scratch soft lines in Rachel's back, making her shift in the taller woman's lap. She let her hands come to a rest on the soft skin of her wife's lower back, easing her up a little. "Just tell me what you feel."_

_She circled the hips with gentle hands and in absolute contrast pulled her down into her- hard. The sound she was rewarded with was all the incentive she needed to keep going. And Quinn did, over and over until Rachel screamed her release._

By the time Quinn got to Rachel's house she had forgotten that the woman she was thrusting into was her thirty-year-old wife and not the sixteen-year-old girl who was going to answer the door. The rain was coming in heavy sheets and she ran up to Rachel's porch taking the steps two at a time.

She knocked on the door and almost instantly it opened. She knew she didn't have to call, she knew Rachel would be ready and waiting. Quinn was vibrating from head to toe, but she still managed a courteous smile before she closed the door behind her.

"Quinn, I think you should dry off, you're all wet."

The blonde's nostrils flared. "You have no idea." She sighed bitterly as the brunette retreated to obtain a towel.

Rachel came back into the room with the blue terrycloth and handed it to Quinn without a word. Her eyes were angling over the blonde's body, being as it wasn't leaving much to the imagination in her drenched clothing. When Quinn turned back to the brunette she was leaning on the doorway, her tank top stretched across her breasts and her shorts cutting tightly around her lithe figure. She was so close in resemblance to the woman she had just been penetrating in her mind, Quinn wanted to scream.

Instead, she dropped the towel and in a fury of emotion and desire, she wedged Rachel against the wall, her mouth claiming the brunette's in a searing kiss. The surprise of the motion conjured a gasp from the full lips Quinn attacked.

Her mouth left Rachel's fastening to her jaw and then moving downward. She brushed her hair to the side, burrowing her hand in the luxurious curls, nipping her neck gently and kissing along the pounding pulse point in her neck. It had the desired effect; Quinn smiled, feeling Rachel's body respond to the touch. "Wait." The brunette whispered and cried out with an inhuman sound as Quinn bit her ear.

"What?" The blonde purred softly, freezing in place over her ear. She saw chills rake the woman before her as Quinn's hot breath taunted her, making her nipples harden against the blonde's chest.

"Not here, upstairs."

With a start, Quinn realized what she was doing, as she clenched and unclenched her hand around the fist of hair she held. She pulled back, the image coming into focus for the first time. Rachel, the young ingenue, was flushed, breathing hard, her neck exposed to Quinn's ravenous touches. She had her eyes closed, at complete mercy to the onslaught of the powerful advances.

In complete submission.

Quinn couldn't do this. No not like this.

She took a deep breath and let it out; loosening the hold she had on Rachel's hair, caressing the tendrils back into place. She couldn't dishonor Rachel and do this when she was a sixteen year old kid, regardless of anything. Because as much as Quinn wanted to believe with everything in her – this wasn't her Rachel.

"I can't do this, I'm so sorry." Quinn whispered, backing away. Those three steps were the hardest she had ever taken. She reached down to pick up the towel she had dropped, filling her hands with anything that wasn't Rachel Berry. She shook her head to clear the guilt that crept in to cut off the air to her lungs. "I really like you and because of that, I can't do this."

"I don't understand." Rachel was hurt and Quinn could tell that though she said she did, she couldn't comprehend it. It was written across her face and for a split second she thought she saw tears in her eyes. The brunette hadn't moved from the wall, her throat moving as she swallowed multiple times.

The blonde moved closer, fighting with everything she had to erase the desire she felt as Rachel moved within arms reach and they hugged. She buried her nose in the soft hair. "I am not rejecting you, so please don't think that."

"Then why can't we see how this feels. I know who I am. I just don't know how many chances I will get at this." There was a break in her voice as the brunette steadied her lip. Quinn didn't have to look to know she was crying.

Quinn sighed, "because I want it to be special," she whispered.

"For me?" The brunette pulled back and as she did so, the image of grown Rachel doing that same motion stole the breath from Quinn's lungs. She had to kiss her. A kiss would be perfect. A kiss that put all the knowing emotion on the front lines and maybe explained to this young girl that in their future there would be so much love and warmth.

So Quinn caught Rachel's lips and kissed her softly. She tried to express that someday everything the girl wanted she could have. She would never go without the love, emotion or sex she needed or wanted. She held her, teasing her lips open so she could caress her tongue along the inside of Rachel's mouth. And finally, pressed a soft peck to the full lower lip.

"Yes. I need it to be perfect for you."


	6. Blurring the Lines

Chapter 5

**Blurring the Lines**

Quinn loved dark hair. It looked so rich and full of life. She had always felt that way, but it wasn't until she was older and had lived with Rachel that she really gained an appreciation for it. Maybe it was the hypnotic shift of color, but Quinn smiled as she twined her fingers in the soft hair beside her and heard a muffled sigh of approval from the dark sofa to her left.

Quinn grinned. Three weeks had passed since she almost broken down, and somehow she had found equilibrium where she could exist without wanting to tear out of her skin. She found herself content in the kind of peace she had once had. Like now, sitting on the sofa, watching movies in the dark with her hands embedded into the curled mass of Rachel's hair. She scratched her nails against the scalp, summoning a lazy smile from the brunette. "Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"What's happening in this movie?"

Quinn shrugged, she hadn't been paying attention. "Not sure." She laughed realizing she had never seen it before. She scooted closer to Rachel, sliding her arm down behind her. "We should start it again." She laughed.

"I don't think so." Rachel snuggled over, sliding her head into the crook of Quinn's neck and splaying her hands around her side, holding tightly. She stretched. "This is nice."

Quinn drew lines over her back, tracing her shoulder blades. It was so peaceful and perfect. She closed her eyes relishing the feel of the soft warm skin shifting under her fingertips. In the past few days she found herself remembering more and more about how it had felt to lose Rachel; and how deliciously perfect she wanted to make every single moment because of it.

The first week she had been so overwhelmed with just seeing her that she forgot everything else. She had forgotten that she wanted to make things better, and that meant that she had to put her feelings on hold. As the time they spent elongated and stretched and the newness and sheer shock of it all started to be filtered away, Quinn realized that she was scared. She squeezed Rachel's side to confirm she was there; a soft happy sound coming to her ears. She was scared that she was making mistakes.

"What's wrong?" Rachel whispered from her position, her head lifting to look Quinn in the eyes. From her position, the blonde could see nothing but blackness in those deep pools of emotion.

"I'm scared." Quinn admitted instantly. It was nice being secure enough as an adult to actually say what she meant. It was something she hadn't been able to do until moving away from Lima.

"About what?"

"Everything." Quinn sighed. A huge part of her just wanted to tell Rachel everything, especially when she looked at her the way she was looking now. She looked like she understood already.

"Anything in particular?" The brunette prodded, her hand coming up to ease back Quinn's blonde hair. She inched the loose locks over Quinn's ear, making the older woman feel so protected in that moment that it didn't seem totally crazy to tell her.

Tell her everything.

Rachel beat her to the punch before Quinn could gather what she wanted to say. "I'm scared that you will leave me." Rachel moved in to press a kiss to Quinn's lips. It was a soft gentle innocent thing that made the blonde smile.

"I'm not leaving you." Quinn whispered trailing her nose against the wrinkled frowning forehead before her.

Rachel seemed nonplused, twining her hand anxiously around Quinn's. "I must be honest about something." She intoned, dramatically seeming to open up her chest for the exposure of her heart. "Sine you told me you wanted to be a doctor I have been doing some research. And did you know that the best medical school for Primary Care and research both is The University of California San Francisco."

Quinn actually didn't know. It had never been an option to her. Rachel was going to Julliard and Quinn went to NYU a few years later to accommodate that. She didn't feel that she had been cheated. She felt that she had been dealt a very lucky hand in fact. "So?" She edged.

"So I have been thinking." Rachel continued catching her lip in her teeth. "I think you should go there and I could go with you, if you want, so that you can do that- there."

It was a very sweet gesture, but Quinn knew there Rachel had a path that would take her straight to her dreams. "No, you want to go to school in New York."

"I don't want that if it means sacrificing your dreams for mine."

Quinn smiled, enamored. "I know you feel that way now, but believe me, you have a gift."

Rachel smiled the fragile smile she always had when she was about to say something that hurt her. Quinn braced for it silently. "Honestly, I don't think I want it if I can't have you with me."

That- gave Quinn pause. Rachel Berry, the egotistical, driven, never-lime-light-sharing, gold star, perfectionist was basically stating that everything she had pushed herself toward her entire life wasn't worth anything to her anymore. Quinn fixed the brown gaze with a hard look, and she knew immediately the girl meant it.

"You don't mean that." Quinn eased back and said just in an effort to erase the confidence in Rachel's eyes, freeing herself from such close proximity.

"Yes, I do." The brunette stated definitively. "I could do something else. I'm graduating with a 4.0, I could go anywhere. I could be a lawyer and go to school out there too. I mean you know how much I love to talk and from the diplomacy club I would have excellent references."

As Rachel droned on, Quinn paced to the far side of Rachel's father's living room, taking the moment to stare out the window. This wasn't right. She had done something she shouldn't have. In such a rush to reclaim what she had lost, she pushed something, tipping a scale that shouldn't have been touched.

"I actually started the application process at Stanford. It has a great legal program and is only 45 minutes away." Rachel shrugged, "according to Google. And without traffic," she added for good measure.

Quinn looked back, regarding the plotting teen on the sofa. She was pensively staring at Quinn. "Say something." Rachel hesitated. "Please say something; I didn't want to make you mad at me."

Quinn covered her face with her hands as a flush of cold panic swept her. What else had she inadvertently changed? Did she change their futures so much that Rachel would give up the only thing she had ever wanted in her whole life? And if she had changed it, could she 'unchange' it?

"Quinn?" Rachel edged closer.

"What?" She said a little too harshly and she knew the words came out of her mouth that she had shot a projectile into the soft center of the woman beside her. She didn't have to look at Rachel's face to see the pain her words carried a moment later.

"Why aren't you happy?"

It was an excruciating pain, one that Quinn never would have fathomed as possible. "I won't let you do it. I'll go to NYU and everything will be fine."

"Quinn," Rachel laughed, "That school sucks comparatively."

"I did just fine for myself there." She snapped angrily as reality rushed up to meet her.

"What?" Rachel cocked her head to the side, crossing her arms before her defensively.

"I will do just fine for myself there." Quinn corrected. She left the statement to float around the room.

"You can do better." Rachel prodded, pushing a button that Quinn didn't know existed. _Her_ Rachel had never even contemplated the effect of scholastics on Quinn. She felt an old wound rush up and swallow her with anger she had buried away. Rachel had already been established as a student at Julliard when Quinn and her fell in love. Quinn's education had never been something Rachel worried about because Quinn wasn't in her life.

Period.

Without the competing factors, Rachel had grown toward her dream, but now…

"Quinn." Rachel touched her arm. "I just can't see us surviving the distance and I would rather give up that stupid childish dream for a possible reality with you."

"It isn't stupid or childish. It is what you are destined to be." Quinn turned to face her, putting as much inflection as she could in her words to dissuade the determined look before her. "You are meant to take that stage and have those moments, believe me."

"But, I love you." Rachel whispered, her hands tightening on Quinn's arm. "I would rather die than be apart from you."

Those words tore something in Quinn's chest, causing her to flinch. What had she done? She couldn't kid herself; she had absolutely achieved exactly what she wanted. She had manipulated a very young and vulnerable Rachel Berry into falling in love with her; mostly because she didn't know better, but partly because Quinn hadn't given her a choice. After all, she reminded herself, who could resist someone who said exactly what was needed every single moment?

"Quinn?" Again the soft very nervous very young voice.

"Yes?"

"I just told you I loved you." Rachel repeated. "Normally you would reciprocate seeing as we are dating and have long term plans together."

Quinn wanted to say something to eliviate the pain she saw penetrate rachel's eyes, but she couldn't. She firmed her lips closed.

Then the pain was replaced with fear and anger, shifting so quickly it spun Quinn's head. She remembered a more tempered version, but this was something to behold. This was the fire that writhed below the surface, cooled by the years they had been together in another life. "Were you using me?" The outrage that tipped Rachel's voice seemed almost impossible to process, such was the immensity of her sudden pain.

"Excuse me?" Quinn replied, a bud of her own frustration bubbling up. "Don't even go there." She commanded, because for a heartrending moment she felt she just might loose her cool.

Apparently, this Rachel didn't know the warning in her voice, and rightfully so, because she didn't know her.

"You gonna go tell your friends about this one?"

She didn't know Quinn at all.

It all became frighteningly real in that moment. She could pretend to be a teenager, but she couldn't look at these eyes anymore. Eyes that were a shadow of the person she once knew who was now dead to her. Someone that she had loved more than anything in the world that now stood mocking her. And if Quinn didn't do what was needed and required of her, she would never have that person again. Because some things were never meant to be fixed.

Quinn turned on her, pinning the angry gaze with a much old and wiser one of her own. "If I wanted to use you I would have fucked you in the hallway a month ago, so don't you dare pull that card on me."

"You can say that all you want but your actions speak volumes more than you think." Rachel combated, dropping her voice into an icy low tone mocking Quinn's most private emotional acts, "I want to make it special, blah blah blah, such bullshit. You couldn't do it because you were probably just messing with me for the benefit of the social puppy mill you ascribe to."

That just about put Quinn into a tale spin where had this actually been her wife they would have not only slept in separate rooms, but separate houses. "Fuck you Berry." Quinn hissed. "I can see now exactly why I couldn't stand you."

"Fuck you back, what the hell are you doing making out with me in my house then?" She asked outraged as tears leaked into the corners of her eyes. "get out!"

"With pleasure." The blonde grabbed her cheerleading jacket, angry at the real Rachel before her and the one that haunted her in her dreams. She shrugged it on, her mind reeling, and she struggled to find the thing she wanted to say.

"You know Rachel." Quinn paused pulling her hair out from under the coat and grabbing her book bag. The brunette wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, fixing her with a cold glare. Quinn realized she had already done enough, and in deference to how badly she wanted to land a coup de grace she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

"Goodbye."

The door slamming was the last inflection she needed as she got into her car, and the hell out of Rachel's life.


	7. Rhyme and Reason

A/N: Yes, still same ending. I will refrain from further expanding for those who haven't read.

* * *

Chapter 6

Rhyme and Reason

_The blossoming starlit expanse of the Arizona desert spread out endlessly in all directions. Quinn sat back comfortably in the bed of the rental truck her and Rachel had taken out. They had poorly pitched a pop tent and spent the better part of the evening trying to figure out how to fix its inverted frame. Rachel chewed her popcorn loudly, interrupting Quinn's thoughts as she mused about hotel rooms. She fed the little kernels into her mouth like an assembly line, making a ridiculous amount of noise. Quinn stared at her with a bemused smile. "Really?"_

_The brunette didn't take her eyes off the sky "Yes, really." She grinned, not stopping her chewing. "It is so beautiful out here."_

_The blonde rolled her eyes and turned back to regard the open desert sky. Between the arching red desert monoliths and the inky black sky, Quinn stared at the horizon. She willed the lightness to vanish. Already she could see the stars coming out, but she wanted it nice and dark to see the meteor shower._

_She pulled out the blanket she had hung over the side of the truck bed and fluffed it out from her sitting position. "No! Quinn!" Rachel warned with a pout moving her popcorn as little chattering sand shards scattered across the red corrugated metal they sat on._

_"Oh get over it, not like you would even notice you're stuffing them in your face so fast." She adjusted the blanket over her and Rachel's shoulders, folding the extra around them to keep the cold night at bay. Already she could feel the temperature dropping and she hazarded a look over her shoulder, comforted to see the not-so-distant-lights of the resort behind them. Thank god for cell phones and broken pop tents, she got to sleep in a king sized bed instead._

_"Quinn. If you keep mouthing off the only thing I'm eating tonight is the popcorn." Rachel joked. Quinn turned to give her a look of mock outrage at the suggestion and in response got a handful of popcorn shoved into her mouth. "Enjoy some with me for god's sake, before I smack you."_

_Quinn chewed hiking an eyebrow, "I swear to you, I know where you sleep, and you will pay for that."_

_"Yeah, how am I going to pay?" Rachel burred softly moving closer and abandoning her popcorn to the side._

_"Well, I'm not sure yet." Quinn admitted pressing a peck to Rachel's forehead before the brunette leaned her head on the blonde's shoulder. "I'll think of something."_

_Rachel twined her fingers in Quinn's using her free hand to stroke the soft blonde hair on her arm. Quinn smiled a little, turning up one corner of her mouth, her eyes landing on the brown head resting on her. A small flash of light reflected against Rachel's preternaturally shiny hair. "Oh there went one!" Quinn said belatedly, her eyes searching the now dark sky._

_"Really?" Rachel asked excitedly hunting as well. Quinn watched her wife as she waited as patiently as Rachel could, which amounted to a full ten seconds, and then her eyes drifted to meet the blonde's "what?"_

_"Nothing, just thinking."_

_"Well think with your eyes on the sky, blondie." Rachel bumped her shoulder against Quinn's gently. She rested there, her weight leaning._

_"Are you not so subtly telling me you're cold?" Quinn slid an arm around her wife, listening to the silent reply of jean covered legs shifting to get closer. "I'll take that as a yes."_

_"Yep." Rachel rested her chin near Quinn's ear, her breath tickling the stray hairs against the side of her face as they both stared up. Quinn clamped a hand around the blanket, sealing the far edges together at the front, feeling it warm a little more._

_Another shooting star streaked over head and Rachel yelled something unintelligible as it lit the night. Just as Quinn went to say something, another and yet another followed. They sat in awe and laughter as the September sky blazed above them. And Quinn didn't care how sore the metal ribs in the truck made her butt, she wasn't moving for anything in the world._

Those images didn't seem to be an option anymore as Quinn walked through the hallways of William McKinley High School, armed to the teeth with her bitterness at the world. Loving Rachel was like trying to hold water in her hands, she thought. No matter what she did, it slipped through her fingers.

As Rachel slid into her desk near Quinn the blonde pretended not to notice, while the love of her life seemed not to care. It went on like that, day after day, the brunette's eyes focused ahead unfaltering, and Quinn's turned back to a future past- wavering.

Between the twisted thoughts that tortured her with a past that had happened and had not at the same time, and a future that fit the same qualifiers- Quinn found it much easier to do everything she had never thought she could.

She could slam Rachel out of her way when the girl didn't move fast enough. Much to her own horror, it was the easiest thing in the world when she thought about how hard she tried to do the right thing, and it didn't matter because Rachel would never be hers again. She was consumed entirely by her anger at the world and the five foot two starlit that ran through her fingertips- like hope ran out of her heart.

A small voice in the back of her mind told her those actions were justified because they played a role in making Rachel the fighter she was until the very end in a distant future. Quinn imagined she was the blacksmith and she was forming Rachel into the finest weapon her grown self could ever have by her side.

When that rudimentary metal form would cut her with a glance in the hallways, she would retaliate against the emptiness in her eyes by filling them with hate. Quinn was helpless to fight the instinctual response and for fleeting sick moments she understood the concept of, if I can't have you, no one can.

And then she would be wracked with guilt and remorse. She could only find solace in the shower, crying where no one could see her tears or hear her sobs. She would tell herself that she was going to be the noble patient person she wanted to be and allow Rachel to grow. In those moments where she made herself believe that she was doing the right thing by putting this wall of anguish between them, she found comfort. Those were the only restful moments in her life.

The world outside their personal dynamic shifted as well. Finn, her boyfriend in the past life, had been denied by Quinn for obvious reasons in this one. And though Quinn realized it was important to keep a neutral existence so as not change too many things; that was one thing she had been uncompromising on. Quinn also omitted sleeping with Puck, which through extension included the deletion from existence of their lovechild Beth.

Yet she found that everything seemed to be going wrong in her life. Her best friend Santana seemed to pull away from her when Quinn was made the Cheerleading captain. Her parents bothered her more, judged her harsher and criticized every move as if they could smell on her the love she had for Rachel. And Rachel wouldn't even be in the same vicinity as her unless it was demanded.

Quinn knew it had to be that way, and she mourned the decision. Every night, every moment apart from the now hateful brunette seemed to shatter a little bit more of her resolve until the day when it happened. When Rachel twined her hands with Finn's and walked down the hall, all the warmth and affection she had given to Quinn displaced and shifted to another. The blonde felt that low burning anger rise to the surface in an explosion.

She had walked into the kitchen the following day, ragged from crying the whole night before, interrupting the prayer over breakfast. She cleared her throat, directing her parent's surprised gazes at her. She hated them, and avoided them at all costs, but she needed something. "I need to see a therapist." Quinn announced.

It had been that simple and the very next day she was driving to see someone, anyone, who would allow her the confidentiality to speak her mind. So she found herself sitting in a very plush chair, tapping her nails against the wood grained table beside her on a cool Sunday morning.

Of course, she still had to be strategic. How would she explain the disenfranchising feelings she had in reference to an existence that had never existed? It was like trying to explain the lifetime of memories she had with Rachel, enough to fill the twenty years she had known her, and here she was barely pushing seventeen. The books just wouldn't reconcile, and it was that broken record mantra that pushed Quinn to the brink every single sleepless night. She couldn't put this world and the last world together with enough overlay to ensure she didn't loose everything.

"Ms. Fabray?" A warm voice toned at her, summoning her from her seat. She looked up at the woman's face, open with greetings. Maybe she could find a kindred spirit to talk to, and at the very least she could have a peer to peer conversation.

Quinn was lead through the one way door and into a comfortably sleek office. She smiled at the similar décor to her own tastes. "Is this Herman Miller?" Quinn asked trailing her hand across the ergonomic sofa before coming to a rest in it.

"You certainly have an eye; it is." The doctor said sitting across from Quinn and folding her hands in her lap. "I decided it was worth the expense because of how the company looks at the diversities in humanity and the goodness and value of all people."

It was a similar reason why Quinn's whole practice had been supplied by the company. That and the CEO was an avid fan of her wife. "I like those reasons; I would do the same thing." She continued carefully. They fell into a silence and Quinn remembered why she had always found friendships with psychologists so difficult.

Quinn was a natural responder to conversation, not instigator. So were most shrinks, which meant there was no catalyst to conversation. Quinn glanced down, staring at her empty fourth finger, missing her wedding ring so much it hurt. That is where Rachel had made her life easier. She could talk to a rock and get it to respond in conversation.

"What are you thinking about?"

Quinn was caught off guard. "Don't you have to do an assessment first? Decide if I'm mentally stable and then do the talk therapy?"

"I know you are mentally stable so it can wait." A small smile followed, unnervingly disarming Quinn instantly. It was so skilled it almost felt like it stretched the time they had known each other from five minutes to five years. "So, what were you thinking?"

"About fate." Quinn whispered her right index finger running over the area where her ring would have sat, "and regrets."

"I would normally say that people your age have no use in regrets, but honestly, you look like you have walked a lifetime in another's shoes." She gave Quinn a meaningful look. "What do you regret?"

The blonde sighed, framing the question correctly would have been, what didn't she regret? She could start a month back and work back from there. The only thing she didn't regret was walking into this office. She hesitated a glance up at the gaze that had shifted politely elsewhere.

"The choices I made in my life. And I have dreamed about going back and fixing everything."

The doctor nodded carefully. "I understand that. Every single person in this world understands the desire to go back and get a 'do over' in life."

Quinn frowned, "I just wouldn't know what to do if I did go back." That sounded safe in Quinn's ears. She let the thought settle between the two doctors as they silently analyzed the essence of the concept.

"You would do the same things, because anything worth going back to fix- anything that gave your life that much meaning couldn't be duplicated if a single thing changed."

"A single thing?" Quinn asked thinking that over. She shifted in the soft upholstery uncomfortably.

"Not a single thing of meaning." The woman batted back the soft volley of words, completely unknowing of how horrible they were. "Something like falling in love, like choosing the path you are walking now, the inciting factors that brought you to where you are can't be changed."

And that was why everything was broken. Quinn was picking and choosing the moments she wanted to keep and discarding the rest. She couldn't do that if she wanted her real life back. The life that she had been willing to die for. Without the bad awful things that had happened and the goodness, nothing would ever match up again.

The blonde lifted her head, tears racing down her cheeks. The gravity of the following words threatened to break her. "Do you think that things that happened to me, if they changed, would change others?"

The psychologist pulled a tissue and handed it to her, focusing eyes on her. "I'd say that every heart break and every joy in a person's life touches the people around them and will eventually, when you are older, form the woman you will become."

Quinn nodded understanding. She had omitted the three most awful moments in her life. And in turn, she had omitted the faults that had made her human that gave her a history. One put stiffness in her walk on cold days and one that made her realize how beautiful it was to feel someone touch her with something other than lust. The last, Quinn rested her head in her hands and cried her heart out. The last, her baby Beth, made her learn to sacrifice and had paved the road toward her wife.

And Rachel was worth it. She was so worth it...

* * *

So when Quinn performed her routine the following week with the cheer squad, she was prepared. She climbed the pyramid knowing how much it was going to hurt. She remembered it like it was yesterday. This had been the inciting factor that put her on the road to becoming a doctor after all. It pushed her toward New York, and the brown eye beauty that loved her because of the imperfection in her walk, not in spite of it. And as she anchored herself at the top, that very woman sat in the stands, and Quinn tried to put it out of her mind so she wouldn't be disappointed when the brunette didn't rush to her aid.

She stood straight, held up infinitely high and allowed herself to buckle and drop.

It never hurt to fall, only to land...

Quinn had enough sense to look for the ground and plant her feet under her as the air rushed past her. She embraced that one second of clarity; She knew what direction to go, finally.

Quinn laughed about it to herself as the bone crunching sound ripped through her knee, stealing the air from her lungs, and gave her something other than Rachel to cry about.


	8. Breaking Eggs

Chapter 7

**Breaking Eggs**

_Quinn laughed loudly and grabbed a pillow to defend her exposed midsection. "Oh god; stop that tickles!" She cried, holding the fluffed material as a shield._

_"Okay." Rachel said pulling back, a henna body pen in hand. She capped it. "It isn't finished, but no matter what you are going to look like an asshole if you wear a white shirt."_

_Quinn bit her lip. It was supposed to just be Rachel's initials, but the body scribbling had turned from a symbolic marking, to a literal one. The brunette's eyes caressed the blonde while Quinn set the pillow aside and studied the artwork on her hip and side. "I don't think it is half bad actually."_

_The twining design had blossomed into hashing patterns, notching out Quinn's ribs as they went up her side. The two patterns crossed somewhere between the hard lines of tribal tattooing and the Celtic flowing style. She liked it. It was a Rachel Berry original._

_A pout. "I was just getting to the good part." Rachel scooted closed and placed a deliciously soft kiss on the swell of Quinn's breast, just above her bikini._

_"None for you missy." The blonde slid Rachel's hair over her far shoulder, and raptly watched the full lips place kiss marks over her skin._

_It was hypnotic to feel and watch the warm mouth on her. Farther down she could see the edge of the large henna scripting she had drawn the length of Rachel's tan back. She reached out and caressed it softly. Dragging her fingers through the loops of her hot pink bikini, and untyping the top slowly._

_"Where did you get this scar?" Rachel burred against Quinn's chest._

_Quinn lifted her head to look at it. "Oh," She lay back down, "a sparkler went down my tank top in third grade."_

_Rachel winced. "That must have hurt a lot. Lucky you didn't burn your nips off."_

_"Yeah, I know. I don't really remember but I'm sure it hurt like hell." Her fingers traced to the shoulder closest to her, pulling the shoulder strap off. She traveled over a small hashing raised section. She slid back over it, feeling the old injury now healed over. "And you, where'd this come from?"_

_"Oh, um," Rachel thought about it, her eyes growing distant, "I think I fell off the swings at school and landed on a Tonka Truck."_

_"Thank God you didn't hit your head or something." Quinn marveled as she traced the ragged invisible scar under her fingertips. "I think I found where you got impaled on the exhaust pipe."_

_They laughed._

The anesthetic wore off and Quinn felt a numb cold sensation travel the length of her left side. She could hear a monitor beeping in the distance. Her mind was foggy, but not foggy enough to not feel the horrific pain of something tugging under her skin, as a doctor worked on fixing her knee.

"More suction." Someone commanded, as cold ice dripped down her thigh.

A moment later she was out again, a clear mask over her face, dragging her back into nothingness.

_"And here?" Quinn had Rachel above her, the topless beauty artfully using her mouth to nibble a healed cut on her arm._

_Quinn was distracted by the view, as her free hand cupped the luscious breast before her. Rachel batted the hand away. "Tell me where this came from." She demanded, pinning the blonde's free hand with twined fingers._

_"Slip and slide plus sprinkler equals two inch scar."_

_"Oh, my poor baby."_

_Rachel smothered her with kisses, Quinn's reality swallowed by the scent of coconut and tanning lotion._

Again the beeping, her heart rate hammered out by the increasing pace of the machine. Before anything materialized beyond the antagonizing sound, Quinn was gone again.

_She was shivering, her reality pinned to the mass of tussled hair, a tongue working patterns against the skin of her leg. "Is this from your surgery?" Rachel queried, her breath cool against the trail of saliva she left down Quinn's thigh._

_"What?" The blonde asked, her mind unable to change gears._

_Rachel nipped her knee with a flash of white teeth, stark against the color of her face. The summer sun was endlessly kind to the warm copper skin before her. "Is this from freshman year?"_

_Quinn checked her mind, "yes."_

_"Bad?" Rachel asked, a pink tongue flicking out to sensually lick the span between Quinn's shin bone and the start of her thigh._

_"It was."_

_"I remember it. I heard the snap by the bleachers." Rachel shook her head, "It was the most horrific sound I had ever heard."_

_"Its no big deal. They fixed it, it only hurts when I'm in the snow or I run." Quinn laughed as Rachel's lips moved from her knee and started a slow meandering up her thigh. "Oh lord."_

_She closed her eyes and the mouth pulled away. She felt a tug on her bikini bottoms and Quinn lifted up. "Watch me." Rachel commanded, her voice dripping. "I like it when you watch me."_

_"You're such a glutton for attention." Quinn whispered as Rachel slid her hands around Quinn's hips anchoring her._

_"As long as you're looking, I'll always perform for you."_

Silence.

Quinn opened her eyes. The beautiful image of tan glistening skin had been replaced by the utterly bland ceiling of her hospital room. Quinn closed her eyes, trying to resuscitate her previous view. A final fleeting image of Rachel's dark eyes pinning her before she disappeared printed in Quinn's mind.

She felt a clenching in her abdomen and Quinn twitched. With that motion came the most horrific pain she had ever felt. Her knee, immobilized in splinting, sent a very definite searing of pain that shot through her groin, up her back and into the base of her skull. Quinn retched from the agony, placing a hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up.

She started crying, knowing she hurt it worse that before. The first time had been a pretty extensive ACL tear, but she could see that the stitching was different this time. She had a full drawn line of red angry flesh just above the swollen joint. She clenched the bedrail, tightening her hand until the metal rattled under Quinn's quivering muscles. She had definitely broken something this time.

Then the agony increased as a machine hummed to life at the end of her bed and moved her anchored leg. Quinn screamed, as the passive motion device anchored to her ankle moved her injured joint a hair, then reversed direction and allowed her to come to a rest. She tried to scramble away but was unable to free herself.

Quinn had always been a better doctor than a patient, and as she was in the process of tearing out her IV port a nurse came in and stopped her. Quinn didn't really hear what she said, but the blonde knew exactly what the button was she placed in her hand.

"Morphine?" She whispered, cradling the lifeline the little device represented. Not only could it free her from her misery, but it could take her back to Rachel. The blonde used its cord to tie it to the palm of her hand and punched the button over and over until she faded into oblivion.

Gratefully, she got out of reality's grasp as the machine started rehabilitating her joint again.

Seven months later, Quinn had enough confidence to walk normally again. She never went back to cheerleading, and Sue had given her a proper speech, retiring her. It had been as pleasant as a fist full of knuckles imbedded in a backhanded compliment. Quinn actually felt emotion though, taking off her Captain badge and handing it over to Santana. The Latina had stopped her, squeezing her hand.

"That will always be yours." She said softly. And their friendship clicked back into place.

It changed the harshness of her relationship with Rachel as well, and that made the nights of pain and days of physical therapy bearable. It was difficult though, because she could hardly look at Rachel without seeing Finn close behind, touching her the same way that Quinn had once been able to. The pain in her chest drowned out anything her knee could ever have created.

She would have been content to follow her predestined path of anguish, if she wouldn't have seen Rachel on Thursday. Quinn had planned to have sex with Puck on Friday night, but when she saw Rachel she realized she had something else to do first.

The brunette slipped into the hallway quietly, her face quirking in a shy smile as she dreamily walked to her locker. Quinn was standing at hers watching, a pinch of fear starting in her toes and rising into her throat. Rachel had the 'just–been-fucked-face'. One she wasn't supposed to have ever had with Finn. Quinn closed her locker automatically, her mouth running dry as she let her eyes study the flushing afterglow; a look of glazed happiness that someone else had put on **her** wife.

With venom she walked past Rachel wanting more than anything to wipe the look off her face, but she reminded herself that Finn could fuck up anything he put his hands on. So, Quinn took a deep breath and averted her gaze as Rachel looked up at her.

When she looked back over her shoulder, those dark eyes were staring at her. For a split second Quinn thought she saw regret, but she dismissed it as she left.

The next night Quinn sat in her bedroom, hair pulled back, staring at her own reflection. She turned her cell phone over and over in her hands. She felt like the cheapest whore in the world and she set the phone to the side. This time with Puck she hadn't been drunk and stupid. This time she had been the seducer.

Quinn was drunk now though, as she held her eyes in the mirror and took a shot of her father's Jack Daniels she had stolen. Having sex with Puck had made Quinn remember why she wasn't attracted to men and why she loved Rachel so much. She wasn't the penetrating type.

No, she wanted to do the penetrating, to slide into her wife and claim her mouth. It was why they fit so well together. In Quinn's drunken mind she couldn't really understand the dynamic, but she knew she missed it and needed it so much.

It was the vulnerability. That was what had stopped her from letting Rachel be anything other than the receiver. That was just another mistake she had made that she was destined to repeat. She didn't truly ever give her wife her full trust. However, it was the brunette's giving of that, her trust in Quinn to own her – body, mind and soul that had made Quinn love her so much. It was the role she played tonight with another person in the hopes that Rachel would someday be hers again. Maybe then, Quinn corrected herself, **certainly** then she would give Rachel the free reign over her that her wife had earned.

Another shot of Jack followed that admonition. There were things she had been prepared for tonight, and some she wasn't. It had hurt surprisingly, but then she had remembered she was in the body of a seventeen year old virgin after the initial shock. It wasn't intimate, it was hard and quick and… Quinn smoothed her hands over her lap; it made her feel so alone. She poured another shot, the bottle mouth tingling against the glass' lip.

She had been ready for all of that. What she not been ready for was the guilt. It wasn't guilt over the sex itself. It was that in her heart and mind she was still married to someone else. She felt like a cheater, like a betrayer. She swore that somehow, someway, her dead wife knew what she had done. Quinn was disgusted with herself.

She just clung to the hope that it would work, and that she wouldn't have to do it again in order to accomplish her pregnancy goal. She drank down the burning liquid. She didn't know if she could do it again honestly.

* * *

Fortunately, the young man was a stud. Quinn couldn't believe her luck. She stared down at the double lines on the pregnancy test she had bought.

In her mind, he was two for two, the son of a bitch. It had taken sixty thousand dollars and four attempts to get the same result with her and Rachel.

She glanced up in the small mirror before her. She stood motionless in the closet sized bathroom at the gas station, not actually seeing anything. She didn't see the dirty walls and the spotted floor. She just stared down the long painful path ahead of her, the images pouring in to overwhelm her.

She wished Rachel was with her, the way she would be for the brunette years later. She yearned for a warm embrace and kisses to sooth her fears, even if they had to happen regardless. She could take a world of thorns if she could be bandaged by those silken hands afterward.

Quinn gave herself a once over, and fixed her hair. She was going it alone this time. She tossed the pregnancy test in the trash. Fuck it, she stated silently as she set her shoulders. She was Quinn Fabray and if she could do this once, she could do it again.

And she did.


	9. The Path Opens

A/N: Hi guys. Just to clarify, this is not a rewrite. This was the original story I wrote in 2009. Just wanted to make sure you all understand I'm not doing the writing version of Benjamin Button… Just thought this original should be up here, since it was "the original". And now, back to it.

* * *

Chapter 8

**The Path Opens**

Everyone knows the story of the high school whore. It was a story as integral in high school culture as To Kill a Mockingbird, or Where the Red Fern Grows. Quinn wore that story like a scarlet letter, as plain as the pregnant belly affixed to her slim frame. She was impervious to the tears she had cried the first time. She knew what was coming, and had already spent a lifetime mourning the pain. The only time she came frighteningly close to losing her control was when Rachel and the rest of her friends discovered the truth.

The brunette looked like she had been punched in the stomach. She stood against the piano, her warm colored skin, blotchy and pale. She had glanced around and when she thought no one was looking she backed away slowly and then ran out of the choir room. The look of unabashed pain and the quickness of her future wife's exit had screamed the affirmation of love they would eventually have to Quinn.

She was so relieved that Rachel cared that she had almost broken down.

So, renewed in her resolve she went through the motions, allowing her body to do what it needed to, and the children around her to torment her. She knew that they would grow to regret their actions, and maybe that was the role she needed to play as well. She was at peace with being the catalyst to the development of everyone who laughed, slammed into her and called her names.

And once she had given birth, Quinn lay in the recovery room alone once again.

It had been different this time. Instead of feeling relief that the child would be leaving her life she was horrified at what she was doing. She knew she had to give up Beth, but being older and wiser she had been ready. She was ready for a family. For a maternal and instinctual moment she weighed her choice: Rachel or Beth.

Santana had told her once that it was no contest. She would choose her son over anyone in her life. So when Quinn chose Rachel, and the nurse was taking her beautiful little girl away, Quinn bit the inside of her lip until it bled to keep from changing her mind.

It was a startlingly close call.

In the hours that followed, when she was taken to her room, Quinn finally mourned the child she had lost when Rachel died. Even though she had never seen him face to face and as a doctor Quinn knew that the child was little more than a few inches in length, she knew he was theirs and was amazing and perfect and wonderful. He had its own finger prints and Rachel swore she felt him move.

Quinn cried into her pillow so people wouldn't hear her tears and misconstrue it as stupid teenage remorse. It was so much deeper than that. She reflected on the horrors she had lived through, essentially losing two children and a wife, in the thirty four years she had been alive.

In a week they would be graduating, her timeline barely coming to fruition when it was supposed to. And that was another pain she would have to endure, no more Rachel every day in the halls at school. Thankfully she and Finn had broken up, but that hadn't helped balm the pain she felt. She knew there were a finite number of times more that she would look at Rachel's face, before the two year cold that brought them together again.

Quinn steadied her breathing and uncovered her face, almost screaming at the soft chocolate eyes beside her. "Rachel?" She asked confused, this never happening in the other life.

"I'm sorry you were alone here crying. You have been through a lot today and I figured that someone should be here with you."

"Don't be sorry, it's deserved." Quinn cleared her throat and tried to look as composed as possible as she pressed a control button, the bed lifting her into a reclining position. She wiped her eyes with the side of her hand and folded her fingers in her lap.

"I brought you these." Rachel didn't refute Quinn's statement; she pointed at the white daisies on the side table and smiled softly. "I hope you like them."

"I do, thank you, they're my favorite." Quinn nodded, reaching over to flip open the small card attached.

"Don't read it yet," Rachel stopped her hand, firming a cold grip around Quinn's warm fingers. "Read it when I'm gone.

"Okay." The blonde pulled her hand back and they stared at one another.

"Well, I do have to go, but please try not to cry anymore." Rachel stood and turned the flower vase, sending the daisy blooms to bounce merrily. "Look," she pointed to the gold stars stuck on the glass, "you got a cluster of gold stars for your hard work today and for the selfless decision you made for Beth." Rachel's lip quivered momentarily and she shifted her eyes. "I really respect you for that, despite everything between us. You really are a good person when it matters most."

"Thank you Rachel."

The brunette waved her goodbye and left Quinn to stare at her blanketed feet. She plucked the card out of the flowers and opened the small envelope.

_Quinn,_

_I'm wishing you a bright future with_

_a fresh start. I hope you have a_

_beautiful life._

_I'll miss you,_

_Rachel_

And after the graduation ceremony, where Rachel had spoken as their class valedictorian, they had hugged their goodbyes. Quinn watched her leave, knowing that for two years she would have to wait and hope.

* * *

_Quinn stared out the window of the restaurant, taking a sip of her sangria, listening to stringed Latin music pour out of the overhead speakers. She admired the ocean view, and the bright warm sun that trickled through the large bay windows beside her._

_Rachel sat across from her, fully involved in a conversation with Brittany and Santana, the later focusing eyes that pulled Quinn's attention from the view. "You come 3,000 miles and you don't even have the decency to pretend you're interested in seeing us."_

_Santana crossed her arms over chest, looking intimidating from her standing position. Three sets of eyes focused on the blonde. Quinn sighed. "I'm just so amazed at what we have all accomplished already."_

_Santana smiled thinly, she had opened a successful Cuban restaurant called La Cantina in the heart of Santa Monica California's historic coastline promenade. Brittany had always had a flare for cooking and had graduated from culinary school, becoming the youngest head chef of three star Los Angeles restaurant. Quinn regarded the proximity of her two friends, and though they had never said it aloud, Quinn knew they were made to be together._

_Rachel's sideways smile broke the mosaic. "I really can't believe this is yours Santana." She lifted her margarita glass, Brittany echoing the motion. "Here is to your success." She paused, "And to the chef tu jour, Brittany honey, you too." They shared a clink of glasses and cheers._

_All Quinn really saw was Rachel's dazzling smile between the glasses and the happiness in her face._

"_You know, I didn't have any idea who you were Berry." Santana whispered, "And honestly when Quinn said you were dating I thought she was nuts." The Latina laughed. "But I knew you were important to Quinn, so I took the time to get to know you." Santana reached a rare hug around the diminutive brunette, causing a rush of color to paint Rachel's cheeks. "I'm really glad I did."_

"_Me too, truly. I wish we could have been friends sooner." Rachel agreed reciprocating the hug. She took a sip of her drink. "So are we going out dancing or what?" She asked after a beat._

_Quinn ran a hand through her hair nervously. "Actually," Santana hip bumped Brittany, making the blonde stand. "Quinn wanted to talk to you," Santana corralled her drink and the hand of her blonde chef. "We are gonna go out onto the patio and watch the sunset, enjoy these treats and come get us when you're ready to go out."_

_With a wink her second best friend disappeared through a colorfully lacquered doorway, leaving Rachel to stare bemused at Quinn. "What did you want to talk to me about?" She purred gently taking another sip of her strawberry margarita; bronze sunlight dripping from her hair and lighting her expectant eyes._

* * *

And the years passed quickly, much to Quinn's surprise. She took the 12 units every semester she was required to so she would finish her undergraduate work in time to transfer to the NYU accelerated program and continue into med school. Six months after transferring she was balancing a twenty unit class load and working at a clothing store a few miles from Julliard.

Everyday before work she passed a small newspaper rack, eyeing the cover expectantly. This was where it had happened. She had passed by and seen a front cover blurb about Julliard's newest rising star. The blonde had only seen one fourth of Rachel's face, but she had known it was her. Such was the power of their meant-to-be-romance in that other life. Her soul had propelled her toward the clippings, pulling one out, and unfurling an ink matrix color picture of the woman she had hated and yet loved her whole life.

Quinn knew it was time when she picked up those very same pages, at the very same news box, and the very same smile appeared before her. It stole the breath from her lungs. It was finally time to see if all her patience had paid off.

She could finally make life a little more bearable with Rachel around her. It would be later that night that she would see her performance at the Ballard Hall on campus, and wait for her, and ask her on a date. And if Rachel said she wanted to go, in that too quick of a reply, Quinn would know that she hadn't lost her.

The tall blonde was wandering around outside her work when she came back to reality. She realized she was late, but at that point she didn't even care. She dropped to the cement planter beside her, holding the newspaper in her sweaty grip. She was even more beautiful than she had remembered. Quinn closed her eyes, remembering her office and the way Rachel had looked. This Rachel looked more like that woman than the girl she had seen two and half years before. It made her heart skip a beat.

"Hey Quinn! What the hell?" It was her boss. She folded the paper.

"Sorry, I'm coming." She replied to the confused look he was giving her. She rushed into the building, "I found her." She whispered as she passed him.

"The-one-that-got-away-girl from high school?" He went to grab for the paper and Quinn unfurled it proudly.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Quinn gushed pressing the newspaper flat on the counter.

"Yeah, she is Quinn. Good for you hun." He patted her back. His eyes darted over the page. "They are really talking her up huh? Must be a hell of a singer." Quinn reveled in the truth of it. "Hey, she's performing tonight." His finger pressed to the performance dates. "You gonna go?"

"Yeah." Quinn's eyes were dreamy. It was going to be an amazing night. "Can I go home early? I have to get dressed up for it."

"Could I say no?" He asked folding a shirt absently and placing it in a pile.

"No, you really couldn't." Quinn smiled tucking the paper away and rushing to get eight hours worth of work done in five.

And five hours later she was getting cat called as she left her work and headed for her dorm. She waived off the voices as they insinuated things Quinn knew weren't going to happen tonight. They would soon, but not tonight. Tonight she was going to reignite the bonfire she had snuffed out four years before.

She picked out a red dress that wrapped around her figure and her long black coat. Laying it across the bed she smiled as she brushed her hair. Quinn jumped into the shower and sang every sappy love song she could remember then got out. The euphoria was amazing and her eyes were lit with hazel fire as she styled her hair; a smile firmed on her lips.

The taxi ride seemed to take forever as she neared the Julliard campus. It was a beautiful artistically designed place. It spoke to Quinn about the decades of gifted students who had passed through the school. It seemed to hum with the kinetic energy of all that talent that passed through its halls. That is why she had pushed Rachel so hard so many years before. She remembered this moment, seeing the school, knowing that her wife would be one of the most renowned.

At the time, she didn't know Rachel would be hers, but she remembered thinking that the damn girl had deserved this.

Quinn got out. She made a line for the theatre hall and purchased her ticket. It was a late Wednesday performance, which made the crowd a little thinner than a weekend one. Quinn was grateful for it as she hummed with nervousness.

She strode into the building when they opened the door and took her seat near the stage. She flipped through the playbill in her hand and busied herself with reading Rachel's biography over and over. It was as familiar as Quinn's own life story; if not more so.

The lights dimmed twice and after the shuffle of footfalls died down, the lights faded, leaving Quinn in an endless breathless moment before the curtain rose and a light pinned through the blackness.

And when it did, she saw her. Rachel Berry, twenty years old now, her hair straightened and pulled behind her. She was epically beautiful, barefoot on stage, her smile shimmering and captivating. She was in her element, and the histrionic portions of her personality rose to the surface. Rachel moved with such grace and poise. She was indescribable to watch. A dark headed angel dropped from heaven for Quinn.

The blonde made it through the first act before she could string together a coherent thought other than accolades to Rachel's beauty. And when Rachel sang, she forgot everything she could remember about the pains she had felt the past four years, and maybe even the pains she felt in her life before.

When the performance ended she screamed her praise, her voice intermingling with the other college students at the final curtain call. Then Quinn remembered that the moment was almost upon her. Rachel came back out on the stage a few moments later to talk to a friend of hers as Quinn was standing. The theatre lights were on now, and the brunette was no long blind to the crowd. Quinn looked up at her as Rachel's eyes scanned the people before her and then froze on Quinn a mere fifteen feet from her.

The world seemed to drop away, even more dramatically then it had the first time they had done this dance. The brunette stood from her crouched position, her jaw hanging slightly slack, her eyes wide with surprise. Quinn could see her lips forming her name, as she moved across the stage. The air around them seemed to spark, the lights brightening.

Quinn followed blindly, setting down her coat without thinking, her eyes following the exquisite flowing form of Rachel as she ran down the stage stairs and circled back to meet Quinn somewhere in the middle of the front row. They stopped ten feet away from one another.

"Quinn?" Rachel whispered in a room that had suddenly fallen silent.

"You were magnificent." The blonde replied. "I didn't think it was possible, but you sound even better than you did before."

Her face painted with in infinitely deep blush. "God, thank you." She ran a nervous hand through her hair. It was the same motion she did that morning that Quinn had lost her, making sure she was worthy of the compliment.

"You deserve the praise everyone gives you." Quinn approached the brunette, her heart hammering in her ears. She felt Rachel move toward her, the wide brown eyes flicking over her. The intent dark gaze was cataloguing this moment away, Quinn knew.

"I can't believe you're here." She stated as they met. Rachel was much shorter in her sandals before Quinn's dress heels. The blonde didn't know if it was the performance or seeing her, but Rachel was shaking as she stood before her.

"I can't either." The blonde admitted truthfully. She thought this day would never arrive, but now here it was. "Look, I know we have had our moments of insanity, but I would really like to catch up with you, maybe go on a date?"

It all came down to Rachel's response. If the fling they had had years before had impacted things. Quinn held her breath waiting to see if she had changed her future.

"I have time tomorrow." Rachel edged a little too quickly and she winced on her excitement. "Wow, I was a little too exuberant there, huh?"

Quinn smiled. It was the same response, the same moment, regardless of the damage she had done before. She had corrected the path, her story, and her moments.

Quinn felt her eyes tear, knowing that she was on the road that would lead to the beautiful future they had until that day. And she would stop at nothing to be certain that day never came.

"Not at all, tomorrow would be great." Quinn reached out and shook Rachel's hand. The brunette laughed that obnoxiously cute sound as she pulled the blonde into a hug.

Quinn felt Rachel's body relax in her arms as both of them acknowledging the snapping of fate as it exploded around them. They had both fixated on this moment in another life, aware at this point that they were done with everyone else. They just had to go through the motions to make others understand what they felt.

When Rachel pulled back there was a subtle shift in her eyes that told Quinn she had felt it and knew what it was. She reflexively tightened her arms, holding the taller woman in her embrace. Quinn could almost taste her, feel her, breathe her and needed her more than anything in her whole life.

"I…I'll… um…" Rachel stumbled over her words, her eyes darting back and forth over Quinn's gaze. "I'll see you tomorrow then." Her hands stayed firmed on Quinn's back, unrelenting in their hold.

"I can't wait." She whispered, dimly aware that someone coughed somewhere behind her. It broke the trance and Rachel allowed her to step out of her embrace.

"I can't either."


	10. Take Me

Chapter 9

**Take Me**

Quinn blotted her lipstick, giving herself a once over before she headed up to Rachel's apartment. She thought about bringing flowers, but had settled on cookies she knew the brunette loved. It was the third formal date they had gone on, bringing to a close the 4 months they had been feeling each other out.

The first date had been to a coffee shop where they talked about where they were going in life. The second was a movie, where they had casually held hands and walked home talking about where they used to be.

Tonight was dinner.

A real romantic dinner, in celebration of Rachel's twenty first birthday. Tonight they would sort out where they were now, and define what they had together.

The New York winter had been cold, but it abated somewhat as it snowed. At first Quinn thought about calling it a night inside, but Rachel wanted to try a little hole-in-the-wall down the street. Whatever Rachel wanted, Quinn would give.

So she had donned her thickest winter coat, complete with down lining and faux fur edging and traipsed up the two flights to Rachel's apartment. At the top of the stair she shook the snow off her shoulders and knocked gently.

"Coming." Rachel called from inside, and a moment later she opened the door.

The brunette had switched out the always in style short skirt for a more functional pair of slacks and high heeled boots. She wore a cream top that scooped dangerously low on her chest, and a bauble necklace that taunted Quinn as it bounced between the swells of her breasts. Quinn tore her gaze from the winking silver rings and beading, glancing up to a pleased smile above her.

"Sorry, um… I like your necklace."

"Glad you like _it_," she supplied the all too confident and sultry reply. "Let me get my coat."

Quinn knew what was going to happen tonight, but she forced it out of her mind. She imagined she now felt how some guys did, knowing they were going to get lucky, and forgetting everything else about the date. She swore she was going to focus on everything tonight, and stop thinking about how the morning light would find them.

But it was really hard in the clothing Rachel was wearing and when looking at the gratified smile on her face.

Once out the door, Rachel twined her fingers with Quinn's and started down the block. She used her other hand to tighten the neck of her coat. "So, this little place has all sorts of stuff we can try."

"Like what?" Quinn asked, giving the cold fingers in hers a squeeze. Rachel gave her a shy smile, halfway meeting her eyes before she was looking down at the sidewalk, her footfalls crunched in the light snowfall.

"Well, they have a really great steak fajita thing that I thought you might like and they have a great vegetable stir fry." Rachel moved the long straight strands from the side of her face, pressing them behind her ear. Quinn smiled; Rachel the vegan. A few years of marriage and Quinn would break her of that.

"I don't know if I told you or not, but I like the straight look." Quinn smiled remembering the various versions she was going to see. Straight haired Rachel was pretty high up on the cute list.

"I figured I needed to try something different, especially since people were telling me that the loose curls made me look fifteen." Rachel laughed, her breath pluming out and rising into the night. "Did you think they made me look fifteen?"

Quinn pretended to think about it, "I don't think you have ever looked fifteen in your life." She continued, "Except when you were pouting and storming out of practice in high school."

"Hey, no fair." Rachel playful bumped against Quinn's shoulder, staying pressed there, her smile brightening. "I think your pregnancy hormones misconstrued what you saw. I never threw tantrums and stormed out."

"Sure, and you might be able to pull that acting innocent stuff with other people, but I know the truth."

"Well, as long as it's you and only you who knows; you can keep my secret and we can pretend that stuff didn't happen, okay?"

Quinn nodded her agreement as she slid her hands free and slipped her arm around the brunette beside her, giving her a quick side hug. "Your secrets are always safe with me."

"I know they are Quinn." Rachel whispered after a moment, her own hand sneaking to firm against the small of Quinn's back as they walked. Quinn smiled happily as she and Rachel walked the few more blocks in companionable silence.

"Can I share a secret?" Quinn asked, her hand coming up from Rachel's back to brush a drizzling of snow from her hair. They slowed to a stop under the glow of a street lamp. It was hypnotic to see the white snow and ebony moving before her, warm clouds of breath accenting the image with an ethereal mist.

"I'd like that." Rachel hedged a smile, pressing closer, and her hands firming possessively on Quinn's hips.

"I'm scared to take you out in public because you are so beautiful. If someone Roofies your drink I'm not carrying you home."

"Oh wow. Thanks for that." Rachel laughed, baring her perfect teeth, her breath escaping in little bursts between them. "You're such a jackass, Quinn Fabray."

"You knew that already." The blonde offered, leaning down to close the distance between her and Rachel to capture her lips in a kiss. Rachel closed her eyes, her hands holding to Quinn. A soft tongue touched Quinn's lips and she opened to the brunette as she explored. It was a stark contrast to feel the warm mouth and cold skin against her face. All too soon she pulled away.

"Come on you. If we don't get to the restaurant soon, I might just have to turn around."

Quinn cocked her head to the side as the brunette pulled her forward. "I'm supposed to complain about that?"

"I said I would go home, not that you would come with me, wishful thinker." Rachel stuck out her tongue, falling into a smooth gate beside Quinn.

"Don't stick it out if you aren't going to use it." Quinn joked deviously, arching her eyebrow in mock scolding of her friend. Rachel slapped her shoulder playfully as she laughed musically in the night.

Quinn knew where this was going, so she enjoyed the ride.

They slipped into the dimly lit restaurant, immediately pulling free of their overcoats as the warmth inside surrounded them. The host led them to one of the back tables, seating them a comfortable distance away on the half circle booth.

Quinn stared through the food choices in her menu as she looked at Rachel. There were a few candles casting a fuzzy golden glow over her face. Her expressive eyes were reading through the menu. Quinn watched the skin of her neck shift as she swallowed. Her lips moving slightly as she read through the list. "What?" Rachel laughed softly before looking up to catch Quinn's rapt gaze on her.

"I was just thinking about the little things you do that I like so much."

"What are those?" Rachel set her menu down and reached for her ice water to take a sip.

"Are you reaching for compliments from me?"

"Maybe," Rachel shrugged, "maybe I want to know so I can do it more for you." She tilted her chin a little defiantly. The older Quinn had seen it this time, she hadn't the first time. She found herself clearing her throat over the emotion she felt. Rachel only did that when she was declaring something. That little motion with those words were her daring anyone to challenge the depth of her affection, and her commitment to being cute over the long term for Quinn.

"It isn't stuff that you know you do, and I'm pretty sure if I told you, you would become aware of it and the cuteness would be ruined."

Rachel laughed. "You're in psychology right now aren't you?"

Quinn took a swallow of her ice water and rolled her eyes, "Maybe." She was, but from knowledge she would never breathe a word about the lip synch reading.

They ordered, or more accurately, Rachel ordered the things she had suggested on the walk over. Quinn had whispered it was Rachel's birthday and asked if they could do something. He graciously agreed he would.

"That wasn't nice." The brunette scowled taking an infinitesimal sip of wine.

"Just cause you are twenty-one doesn't mean you have to drink. I can tell you don't like it." Quinn stated matter-of-factly. Rachel pushed the glass away.

"Wine is an acquired taste and I'm working on acquiring it." Rachel smirked. "I find that I'm not really into the whole alcohol thing honestly, I'm absolutely too much of a control freak. One beer and I'm happy."

"Yeah." Quinn swirled her ice tea with a long spoon and then set it aside.

"Can I ask you something?" Rachel asked her face serious.

"Certainly."

"What did it feel like to be pregnant?" Rachel asked softly.

Quinn didn't really know how to answer the question. She hadn't remembered it. She could always say that Rachel would know someday, but without a caveat it would open a conversation she didn't want to push. "It felt draining and euphoric at the same time." Quinn stared down at the table top. "I'm certain that it would have felt amazing if I had done it with someone I loved, it is hard to feel good about something so monumental in an unstable environment. You start to think it is the baby's fault this is all happening."

"Would you do it again?" Rachel traced a perfectly manicured nail over the paper placemat before, her eyes firmly glued to the table. Quinn never realized how important this question had been. She debated on changing her answer, but for good measure she kept the story straight.

"Probably not. And if so, not any time soon." She paused, and here she asked the reciprocal. "And you?"

"I haven't done it the first time yet." She wagged her eyebrows. "But yes, I want to, someday." Rachel added for good measure.

They fell into comfortable silence. Quinn thought about where the future was going to take them. For two little girls from Lima Ohio, they had seen a lot of the world. She liked to travel with Rachel and that was part of why she opened her own practice. Something about the brunette's constant glee over everything, like a wide eyed child, made even a mundane trip to the store an adventure.

"What are you thinking about?" Rachel asked focusing from the haze of her own thoughts.

"I was thinking about how much I like you."

That was what Quinn had said, being the first to cross that line and start the race. Rachel nodded to herself. "I was thinking the same thing."

She left her placemat and drink behind as she moved closer to Quinn. "I really wanted to ask you if we could be exclusive, but I didn't know how to do that without sounding like a teenage guy in the fifties wanting to go steady."

"You just sounded like a teenage guy asking to go steady." Quinn joked meeting Rachel in the middle of the booth, sliding pleasantly into each others proximity. "I would love to know I don't have to share you with anyone."

"You never really did, I haven't seen anyone in for a while."

Quinn smiled at that, running a smooth hand over Rachel's cheek. "Can I tell you a secret?" How had she said it the first time? Quinn certainly hadn't been as smooth. Her fingers caressed up into the loose hair and then back along her jaw line.

Rachel's steady breathing filled Quinn's senses as she inclined her face against Quinn's fingers and her eyes fluttered closed. Her lips firmed into a small smile of enjoyment as she reveled in the soft touch. "Depends on if it is as good as your first one," she toyed, a dark eye peeking open and then closing happily as Quinn's hand resumed movement.

"It's better." The blonde couldn't understand how she had ever forgotten the heavenly beauty before her; how she could ever have let her slip through her fingers. She leaned a little closer, her breath stirring the tendrils of hair in her fingers as her thumb slid over endlessly soft skin. They were so close, and Quinn watched Rachel's lips part. "I want to be your best friend and your secret keeper for as long as you'll let me."

Rachel smiled brighter, opening her eyes. "I don't think that is a secret." She took in the proximity and the touches. Rachel pressed closer, sliding her lips against Quinn's and pulling back. "You want to hear a real secret?" She pressed into her mouth again. "I'm not hungry; I want to take you home."

Quinn smiled. That hadn't been a secret either.

It was finally that moment, standing outside Rachel's apartment. She twisted the key in the lock and opened the door. Quinn slipped inside, swallowing the nervousness that rampaged through her, all of her brazen confidence evaporated once they were inside. The kitchenette light was on and cast shadowy outlines across Rachel's face when she turned to the brunette.

"I need to know something Quinn." Rachel whispered slipping past the blonde in the small entry way. Quinn didn't remember this part, which meant that it had something to do with the intimacy they had shared so long ago. It was a refreshing difference that kept her on her toes. Rachel bent into the small refrigerator and retrieved a bottle of cold water. "Why didn't you want me in high school?"

Quinn had her eyes fixed on Rachel's hands as she twisted the top off. She offered it to Quinn, and the blonde shook her head no. "Honestly?"

"Of course honestly." The singer offered, leaning against the counter. "No, I want you to lie to me." She joked sarcastically.

Quinn felt a wave of nervousness pass through her. If she said the wrong thing now, would she ruin everything? "I wanted you to have your dreams, and I know this was part of them coming true." Quinn stared down at Rachel's hands again as they fiddled with the cap of the water bottle.

"And Beth?" Rachel asked her voice cracking a little. She took a quick sip of the water to cover it.

"Or Finn?" Quinn countered crossing her arms, the real pain of that surprising twist coming back.

Rachel lifted an eyebrow, "I wanted to make you jealous." She capped the water. "I see that it worked."

"Well, my reason was much nobler. I just wanted to be with you." Quinn supplied a beat later, dancing dangerously close to the truth.

Rachel set the water aside and took four careful steps, ending in Quinn's arms. Her hands glided across Quinn's cheeks and touched her heart; soulful eyes filling the view as she leaned in to give a heartfelt kiss. And that was all she needed to say.

The blonde found her lips with the force of a lifetime of want, driving a hot line from her mouth to her toes. One of them moaned in the dark and Quinn didn't know if it was her or Rachel, but it turned her insides to liquid. Rachel pushed her backward, into the bedroom, her mouth hungrily searching Quinn's.

"I missed you so much." Rachel confided; her hands groping to pull Quinn closer to her. "I missed the way you taste and smell." The brunette shrugged out of her jacket, tossing it into the vast eternity of the dark room in a glitter of melted snow. "God please… Quinn, I…" Her soprano voice cracked again and she cut off her own sentence as she dove into another deep kiss.

"I'm right here, Rachel.' Quinn confirmed, pulling off her own clothing. She hit the bed with the back of her legs and sat. Rachel crawled over her straddling her lap.

"I missed you." She whispered again, the shadow of her form visible against the white wall as she arched and pulled off her top. Quinn slid a hot hand up the length of Rachel's body, closing her eyes against the rush of endorphins that flooded her, feeling her body arch under her hand. It was the hottest thing she had ever felt, able to touch the swells and curves that had been taunting her earlier.

"I missed you." She leaned in and kissed Rachel again, pulling back so just their tongues touched for a moment. She angled her head down and began a long and well deserved line of kisses down the neck before her.

Rachel panted heavily under the motions, her hands in Quinn's long blonde hair and down her back, scratching the skin gently. "You feel so good." They both admitted simultaneously and then stopped to just feel for a moment.

Quinn pulled Rachel back with her as she sprawled across the bed, twining her body around the brunette's, not able to get close enough. Rachel was controlling her and Quinn pressed up and rolled, flipping her shorter lover, pinning her with kisses and groping hands. Quinn stood and unzipped her pants, sliding them off in a puddle by the edge of the bed. Rachel followed suit, kicking her slacks down her toned legs and threw them behind her to smack against the headboard.

"I can't tell you how long I have wanted this." Rachel admonished, pushing up on her elbows to meet Quinn as she came down. They tangled mouths, and Quinn slipped her hand under Rachel's back, popping her bra clasp and smoothing the material off her.

Quinn's hands were on her a moment later, feeling her nipples harden under her touches. The brunette moaned softly slipping her hands up Quinn's sides and under her bra. Rachel laughed a little, "I want to feel your _whole_ body against mine." She unclasped the black lace behind Quinn's back and slid her hands down, hooking a finger in the waistband of Quinn's underwear pulling them down.

She lifted her hips as Quinn did the same to her, pulling the lacy thong off. That had been new. Quinn found it much hotter than she remembered anything ever being. She slid in a well rehearsed motion against this beautiful woman as she settled back down. Quinn claimed her neck, forcing Rachel to splay out under her, surrendering control as her body pressed above her. Rachel quivered beneath her, just as she always had done. Quinn bit her neck gently, making the brunette jerk in her arms. "Oh wow, yes." She hissed, and swallowed, her throat moving under Quinn's lips.

"I **love** the way you feel." Quinn dragged her body over the hot dark skin beneath her, her thigh pinning against the soft slick skin between Rachel's legs and making her moan. She could feel her throbbing.

"I love **you**, Quinn." Rachel whispered and when Quinn looked at her she could see the white of her eyes in the dark. She sighed almost angrily at herself, but continued. "I always have, that is my secret." The blonde pulled back having never experienced this moment. It felt exciting as another new memory was gifted to her. "I know that you were evil in high school because you wanted me to come here. It just made me love you more. I know you didn't mean it, any of it."

Her soft lips pecked Quinn's neck, making the blonde shiver. "I didn't, you're right. I'm so sorry." Quinn couldn't think about it. She caressed her lips against Rachel's face. "I love you, too."

"Then make me yours." Rachel whispered, laying back and reaching to pull Quinn onto her. The blonde slid down, her hand weaving up Rachel's toned thigh and touching her wetness.

It was better than she remembered because it was real. She had forgotten the little things, the warmth of the brunette's body; the solidity of her frame and the softness of her skin. She moved her fingers around, gratifying in the love she felt. She ducked her head, trailing her tongue over every inch of Rachel she could touch. Her skin tasted like sunshine and cocoa butter. Quinn focused on the firm breasts, her tongue flat and softly moving in circles, knowing she was teasing her cruelly as she amped up speed and then pulled her fingers away over and over. Rachel was crying out between hurried breaths.

"Please Quinn," she finally gasped, "I really want to feel you go inside me." And more than happy to oblige Quinn pressed her fingers into Rachel as her mouth claimed the brunette's in much the same way.

For a breathless moment Quinn felt dizzy, as Rachel pulled away crying out as stretching around her. She went to pull her fingers back but was stopped by powerful legs clamping around her arm. "Oh god, let me just feel it." Rachel commanded pulling Quinn's mouth to hers, kissing her softly, sensually, holding her face there as she tightened and flexed around her fingertips.

Quinn felt the gentle tick of her wife's muscles around her, she used her other hand to run nails through her hair, and kiss her slowly. "I love you so much, angel." Quinn wedged between the soft deep kisses, Rachel's hands pulling her body closer, firming tightly on her shoulders and back.

Breathlessly, "say it again."

"I love you so much, angel." Quinn repeated against her full lips, as the legs around her arm relaxed and she felt a strong clench of the muscles; her words driving Rachel faster and faster to the edge.

"No, just the last part."

"Angel." Quinn whispered as she slid her mouth down to Rachel's ear. She turned her head, chills racing down her body. Quinn used her elbow to part her legs further which spread at the silent command.

The blonde moved her thumb over the hardness above her fingers and felt deep muscles contract around her. It was amazing. Rachel gasped; her voice weaker as Quinn worked over the hard nub. "Say it again."

"Angel." Quinn provided, sliding her fingers in and out with a slow rhythm. It didn't take long; Rachel was at the edge four years earlier. Every thrust brought quivering hips to meet her, and tore languished moans from Rachel's mouth.

She felt the tell tail tightening of her walls and Quinn pulled out and then slid all the way back in angling upward against the sensitive spot she had been thrusting against. She circled her fingers there making Rachel arch reflexively.

"Am I really your angel?" She whined and Quinn realized it was the first nice nickname she had ever given to the woman in her arms. It was the first time for everything.

"You are that and so much more."

"What else?" Rachel huffed her hands tightening around Quinn's arm as her hips tried to back away, but couldn't. Rachel bit her lip, her body tightening, holding her orgasm at bay for as long as she could. In the warm night, her eyes were shimmering with emotion.

"How about you're the love of my life?" Quinn kissed her nose. She didn't know why she did it; it was just the sweetest purest motion she could think of. It didn't seem right to do anything in that moment other than give her such an innocent and protective touch.

"Oh God, Quinn!" She cried breathlessly, lifting her head for a kiss. Quinn kissed her lips softly.

All at once Rachel exploded in her arms, tearing her mouth away; screaming Quinn's name she shattered into a million pieces. The blonde saw starlight behind her eyes as the nuclear reactor in her arms went into meltdown. She had never felt anything like it in her life.

Never.

Not once had she made Rachel, young or older, scream her name like this. It caused her own body to rage like a four alarm fire, feeling the long hard vibrations. She backed her fingers out slowly, and after what felt like forever, Rachel was left a crying wreck.

"God I love you, it is so right, you make me feel so good, oh god!" Rachel sobbed rambling, warm tears falling to Quinn's shoulder as she rolled Rachel into her and held her tightly. She made soft soothing sounds, kissing the tear streaked cheeks. "I love you, I just do so much, for forever I have, and you have no idea. Since I was little, you have been in my every dream and I need you to need me that much."

"I do." Quinn nudged Rachel's forehead with her nose. "I always have, I feel the same way."

They held each other in the dark until Rachel's breathing leveled out.

"Can I touch you?" Came the soft voice, purred against Quinn's ear gently.

"Yes." Quinn whispered.

"Can I feel inside you?" Rachel shifted to catch Quinn's mouth, stoking the fire again. She pressed her backward to the soft comforter and crawled predatorily over the length of Quinn's body. She would never know the gravity of the answer Quinn gave her, but sometimes it's the not-knowing that makes it so perfect.

"Please." The blonde whispered breathlessly as a confident hand ran through her hair and she relaxed against the bed.

"I'll go slowly." She soothed making Quinn smile at the tender concern. "Do you trust me?" Rachel whispered, her hands leaving feathery touches in all the right places.

"With my life."


	11. Redux

Chapter 10

**Redux**

June 29, 2019. (2 years later, 13 years more)

"_Get away from me!" Rachel yelled, pulling from Quinn as she followed her into the bedroom. The blonde watched frozen as she heaved a suitcase onto the bed._

"_Where are you going, Rachel? Really." Quinn intercepted her motions as she opened her dresser drawer, grabbing for her bras and underwear. The blonde held her arms tightly, pulling her close. "Please don't do this." She whispered against the set jaw and teary eyes._

"_Let me go." Rachel edged angrily, struggling and finally pulling away. She stumbled backward against the nightstand, her jacket awkward around her frame from the struggle. She straightened it with methodical hands. "I __**will**__ do this, because obviously you don't care how I feel."_

"_I do." Quinn ran a hand through her hair, tendrils falling from her loose bun and obscuring her eyesight. "I didn't mean to make you feel like that. I never should have said…" Quinn couldn't even repeat it; she could feel her mouth hanging on the end of her skull. "Well," she recovered. "I shouldn't have said it." She rolled her eyes as Rachel turned back to the drawer._

"_I'm sorry, angel." She wedged in attempt to win her over. As Rachel turned from the drawer, she slammed it shut, cutting off her access. "I'm sorry! What more do you want me to say?"_

"_Sorry isn't going to cut it, that's for sure." Rachel reached under the bed and dropped three pairs of her closest shoes in the bottom of the suitcase and then threw her undergarments on top. "Where in the hell do you get off using our relationship as leverage to get back at your family?" Rachel stormed past Quinn, shoulder slamming the blonde in the doorway as she passed. "Do you think I like feeling that my love for you is exploitable?" She rummaged in the bathroom and returned with her toothbrush and makeup bag._

"_No. I just wanted to rub it in their face how happy I was. Do you think I exploit you?" Quinn came in over Rachel's shoulder as the brunette dropped an armful of clothing haphazardly into the case. "If you do, then you are the one with the problem- not me."_

_Her shoulders caved for a moment and Quinn knew she had won. She had the upper hand, having struck at the insecurity she knew Rachel had regarding her emotional evaluation of situations._

_Rachel turned so quickly it made Quinn's head spin, her jaw defiant. "No matter how much I love you, I can't be with you anymore. You use me; you yell at me, you treat me like crap and no matter how hard I try, I can't make this work alone." She grabbed the suitcase and brushed past Quinn, leaving the blonde speechless._

_It took her a moment to recover as she stared down at the floor where Rachel had been standing. She turned toward the opening front door, "You know you can't end this. Not like this. I'm sorry." She wiped at her tears realizing that she was desperately wrong. "I'm sorry."_

_But it was too little too late, as Rachel cried while she shut the door, leaving Quinn alone._

June 29, 2019. (2 years later, 13 years more)

The lithe blonde was aware that she was lucky. She knew where she could be and what she could be suffering through. Instead she was having the moments back that she had lost. This was her Rachel Redux: The return of Awesome. Quinn laughed to herself, she was such a geek.

Rachel was laughing under her breath too, hand circled in Quinn's as they walked side by side around the outside of The Winston Music Hall. Her red graduation gown was hanging open and trailed behind her as she moved, flashing alternating red and navy of her skin tight dress skirt and blouse. She had refused to throw her cap during the graduation, and instead Quinn held it protectively in her free hand, for her girlfriend.

Girlfriend. Quinn squeezed Rachel's hand, bringing the almost burgundy colored brown eyes up to meet hers. "I'm so proud of you." Quinn whispered, kissing the knuckles in her hand.

"I love you too." Rachel was breathing heavy and shook her head, "I mean I'm proud of you too." She studied the door beside them. "I mean thanks." Quinn could tell she was distracted long before she answered so confusingly adorable. She pushed it open with a wedge of her high heeled pump. She turned to Quinn expectantly. "I want to show you something."

Quinn followed her, checking to be sure no one was coming. They had broken away from the group of graduates celebrating with one more hurrah on campus. Quinn smiled in the dark as she twined her hand with her loves and allowed the brunette to lead her blindly toward the back stage area. "Are you going to get us in trouble?"

Rachel gave an exasperated sigh, "Alumni have free access to the stages and practice rooms. I promise I won't get us in any trouble." She turned down a small alcove and walked up a few small stairs. Rachel was a college graduate, with honors; Quinn couldn't believe it. She had proven that a young ingénue from Ohio had the stuff to make her dreams come true. She had proved she wasn't just a big fish in a small pond back home; she was the biggest fish among…

"…big fish everywhere." Quinn whispered.

"What?" Rachel whispered coming to a stop. "Did you just say big fish everywhere?" She pressed a kiss to Quinn's cheek kicking at dusty cables on the floor, she laughed. "Its a good thing your pretty, cause you sure ain't makin' sense, doctor." The brunette nibbled her ear softly with a southern drawl purring in her ear.

"Don't pay attention to me, I really am retarded today. I'm just so happy for you." Quinn laughed a little and allowed Rachel to pull and kiss the skin on her neck. After a few moments the brunette returned to her mission, the taller blonde behind her again.

Frazzled from the teasing touches, Quinn brushed back a handful of wild hair as they passed through a doorway and she let it swing closed behind her. Under Rachel's encouragement she had let it grow a little longer and she had curled it. It was something she had never done before, preferring the no-nonsense straight strands. Rachel had lost the straight style too in the past year and a half; she had gone back to her natural loose spirals. Pleasantly Quinn reveled in the fact she had found something else to do in the mornings that didn't include straightening her hair.

"Give me a second, wait right here." The brunette commanded, using her hands to hold Quinn steady on the desired spot. And like a puppy, Quinn waited. She laughed to herself. Rachel Berry had certainly blossomed. Quinn had forgotten how much growing they had both done during this time. She realized that the old Quinn wouldn't have been standing here waiting or thinking, but here she was, a whole lifetime smarter and doing exactly what she had been told.

Rachel was over in the rigging area, her head cocked to the side as she read the labels fixed beneath each pulley system. "You gonna pull a trap door on me?" Quinn called across the stage as an excitement built in her gut.

Rachel shot her a thoughtful look, "Of course, but you won't know for sure if you don't stay put."

Since reclaiming Rachel in her life, she had worked harder than she ever had to earn her love and trust. All the terrible things she had done before, she was erasing – paving new moments and memories that she had never had the opportunity to enjoy before. Quinn tried to remember what she was doing during this period in her last life.

They had broken up, because Quinn had used their relationship as leverage to hurt her family. She had never seen Rachel's graduation.

Quinn stared down at her feet, wincing at what lack of judgment she had when she was twenty three the first time around. She marveled at how much easier it seemed to just love someone; really love them, without regard or fear. The woman that stood beside her for so long deserved it. Quinn had already seen down the road before, Rachel wasn't going to leave unless someone took her away.

The thought of that broken day still hurt, but a balm of her smile when she looked over at Quinn helped her forget the pain. It almost felt like it happened to someone else, because so many things were different. When Rachel looked at her now, there was a different spark, a different Rachel growing before her eyes. This one was self assured and strong.

Quinn smiled at the brunette as she dusted some of the tags, rubbing her fingers through the film and then pulled her gown off to hang on one of the pegs beside her.

This Rachel looked like she was strong enough to survive anything.

She began flipping switches on the rigging system. The curtain opened to the right, making Quinn jump as it pulled up and apart, opening to the empty seats. Quinn focused from the chairs to center stage where a tire swing and a faux tree stump sat idly.

The blonde watched as a set piece of a forest scene rolled onto the stage at the next beckoning of Rachel's motions. Rachel slid up beside her, a casual hand on her side. "Come with me." She took Quinn's hand and led her around to the lighting console and she flipped the lights, drowning out the audience seating and lighting the stage in orange points of light. The little wire LED lights bobbed from the scaffolding above them.

"This is really amazing." Quinn said, regarding the stage. She felt like she was in the middle of a warm Ohio wooded area, complete with summer fireflies.

"They just did a play about the bayou, so I figured I would omit the fog machine and take us back home for a fraction of the cost since two graduation gowns and clothing are expensive." Rachel backed toward the tire swing and held the rope in her hand. "Wanna swing?"

"Don't you?"

"You first." She offered anchoring it as Quinn slid into the tire portion and accommodated herself. Rachel pressed against Quinn's back getting a little bit of momentum going. The blonde closed her eyes as the air moved past her. For a moment she imagined she was in the front yard of a home in Ohio, one that she and Rachel owned perhaps.

"Hey Rachel?" Quinn asked as she felt the hands on her, pressing her forward and then she was flying again. It had been a lifetime since she had someone push her in a swing. Her father had been the last person when she was little.

"Yeah?" Came the far away voice. "What's up?" Closer that time.

"What do you want to do now?" Quinn was honestly curious. She and Rachel had spoken about very few aspirations aside from becoming a singer and a doctor. The blonde realized she just assumed that Rachel would want to live in New York. As a Broadway performer she could spend time in the city during the show season and then live anywhere else when she wanted to.

"A few things actually." Rachel missed the swing and Quinn felt her momentum slowing. "I want to do some off Broadway stuff while you finish school, but once that happens we can clear out of here if you want." The Doppler effect on her voice was fading as Quinn came to a stop on the swing. She opened her eyes a little dizzy as she tiptoed in circles on the tire swing.

"That sounds good." Quinn smiled absently. What a different life it was turning into. Rachel wouldn't even be in New York the day she was supposed to be hit by the car. The blonde rested her head against the tire in her grasp.

"Hey, you okay?" Rachel offered. She leaned over the top of the tire swing, a small smile on her lips. "Not sick are you?"

"No." Quinn sighed. "Just really happy." Quinn leaned back a little and twisted to rest her back against Rachel's middle. "I just can't tell you how proud I am of everything you are doing." Quinn looked up and they shared a kiss as her new graduate leaned over her.

Rachel's hand came up to caress Quinn's face as they pulled away. "Did I ever tell you that you have the longest eyelashes ever, I mean really. They are amazing." She held out her hand and helped Quinn escape the circular swing as she anchored it with her other hand.

"Did I ever tell you that I got twisted in one of those for like 45 minutes once?" Quinn laughed. "It was at…"

"Joanna Wilson's birthday party in second grade." Rachel nodded, her hair bouncing as she grinned. "I was there. You were so pathetically adorable."

"Shut up!" Quinn laughed. "You were there!"

"Shut up, I was!" Rachel mirrored back, pulling on Quinn's hand and twirling in a circle, using the blonde as an unwilling dancing partner.

Quinn felt her knee hurting just at the thought of the spinning woman in her arms. It was in her head though. The knee surgery, because she had a partial replacement done, was actually better than the one before. In a fit of semi-stupidness she would regret the next day she pulled Rachel to her and then spun her out again.

"Oh, wow." Rachel grinned as she curtsied a little and then slipped into Quinn's embrace. "If I knew all I had to do was turn on some fireflies to get you to dance, I would have done it **ages** ago."

"Yeah well." Quinn smiled, shifting a little to test her knee. It felt okay so she continued to dance, leading Rachel in a slow circle. "If you can get me fireflies in New York City, I can get you a second rate dance."

Rachel rested her head against the crook of Quinn's neck. "No, never second rate." She slipped her hands into Quinn's threading their fingers together. "I am so happy I can share this with you. I always wanted to share the stage with you."

"With me, why?" The blonde asked gently, running a hand up the smooth silk of Rachel's shirt. The material warmed to the skin beneath it.

"I always admired your gustiness and how cool you were." Rachel laughed. "Cool as in cool and calm, not cool, as in cool kid at school."

"Huh?" Quinn smiled brushing up and through Rachel's hair as they continued to dance in slow circles, "I'm pretty sure you admired I was cool too."

She just nuzzled closer in response. Quinn closed her eyes, feeling the calm peace around her. She started to hum a soft song, she didn't know the words, but they both shifted, moving to the melody.

"Quinn?" Rachel interjected, silencing the song; her motions coming to an end. "I have something I want to say, and knowing me it will be long-winded."

The blonde smiled. "Should I sit or are we talking short version long winded?"

"Short version, long winded."

"Then I'll deal with it." Quinn kissed her forehead smiling. "You have the floor, angel."

"I have been thinking about what I want to do and where I want to go." Rachel began, smiling back to Quinn. "I mean, its graduation time and I think everyone starts to catalogue the future path they see before them."

The brunette turned to look out across the endless expanse of darkness beyond the stage. She seemed to be gathering her thoughts. Quinn crossed her arms over her chest. "What is it that you see down your path?"

"You." Rachel glanced over at her, a thin smile on her lips. "I really stop and try to think of other things; think about my fantasies of Broadway that used to propel me forward when I was younger and they just don't even compare."

"Well, I'm glad that you're happy with me." The blonde shifted closer wrapping a supportive arm around her.

"It's so much more than that Quinn." Rachel admitted. "I'm incomplete without you and right now, like this, the way we are, I feel like something is missing."

"Missing how?" Quinn asked.

"We are missing a key part of our relationship."

Quinn went to say something snarky, but the brunette intercepted her lips with a well placed hand, since she must have seen the comment coming. "Wait one second; I have something more for you."

Quinn focused on the serious expression before her; the small furrow above Rachel's brows making an appearance for the first time. The blonde laughed a little when Rachel removed her hand and reached into her small navy clutch. "You have something else, really?" She looked around. "How does it get any better than this, really?"

"With this." Rachel whispered as she came back up. She slipped a ring up between her and Quinn, presenting it with that look of defiance that had become a daily thing.

Oh my god, Quinn's thought right before her brain stopped working.

She had proposed in their other life, not Rachel. They did it at Santana's restaurant in a year from now. Quinn felt her eyes blur. Did it mean something? Did it matter? The small solitaire winked at her in the firefly light with promise.

Quinn felt the whole world slow down around her. She lifted her eyes to the expectant face across from her. Instead of the fragility she had often envisioned when she remembered proposing to Rachel, there was a fire here. The chocolate gaze was fixed and steady, strong even.

_This_ was who Rachel was meant to be, but she had grown into it so much younger and faster than before. She looked ready to take on the world, and Quinn couldn't help but wonder if her personality flaws had been part of what stifled her wife the first time around.

She realized that Rachel was still waiting for an answer. However the brunette, never very patient, spoke up. "Are your tears a yes?" Rachel asked. "Or is that you wanting to figure a way out of this situation?"

Quinn smiled, and sniffed wiping her eye with her thumb, "I love you; of course it's a yes, but on one condition."

Rachel kissed her. Kissed her like she was going to drown in her- kissed her. It literally sucked the breath out of Quinn's lungs. Not that she minded, she noted to herself as she went back for more as soon as they broke apart. "What is your condition?"

"You take my name." Quinn smiled, looking down as Rachel threaded the ring up her finger. The brunette became thoughtful pulling close to Quinn's lips.

"Do I make a good Fabray you think?" She pecked a kiss again. "Est-ce que je suis une bonne Fabray?" She repeated the same thing in French, the horrible guttural language sounding infinitely beautiful in her lilting voice.

"You make a better one then I do." Quinn replied in her charmingly self-deprecating way.

"I will on one condition." Rachel prompted securing her hand in Quinn's, a small shock of doubt rolling through her eyes. Quinn nodded. "In four years, when you are out of med school, we start a family."

"Okay." Quinn offered, unwilling to think about how this impacted the history she was working off of.

Rachel sighed emotionally, "Good, because I really want to have babies with you."


	12. Tempting Fate

Chapter 11

**Tempting Fate**

February 20th 2020. (12 years more)

_She could feel the ground moving under her as she ran. There wasn't much to see aside from streaks of color as she cried. Quinn stopped before the clinic's emergency entrance and the doors slid open with a gust of wind. It was a bone rattling wind; it ripped the warmth from her body, evacuating all reason and filling her veins with ice._

_She stared into the empty ER. The dead silence frightened her until a soft cry called her forward, and though she didn't want to move, her feet dragged her into the building. She passed the empty nurses station, her eyes falling to a trail of red blood. It was smudged and smeared as if something broken and floundering had moved through it, drawing fanning streaks in lighter colors through the gore._

_It was Rachel's blood, she knew, she had never seen a color as stark. Red had never been so red like it was the day she died. Quinn was crying before she turned the corner, as her body moved as inexorable as time pushed her toward this moment._

_And all at once that sick sweet smell of blood that she had learned so well through all of her years in medicine was before her. Rachel stood before her; stared at her blankly, her face at odd angles, broken almost beyond recognition except for the coffee colored eyes._

"_Where were you?" She accused from torn lips, "I missed you."_

_Quinn couldn't move as she struggled against the invisible chains dragging her down; she couldn't turn away. She was frozen, staring into the bloody face that extended forward on a broken neck and kissed her forehead in goodbye._

Quinn awoke to the sound of a scream on her lips, thrashing against the blankets that held her tightly bound. She was having the nightmares again, horrible haunting grotesque visions. She dimly realized she was in her bed with a warm body beside her.

But she couldn't stop. She had to escape the panic and anguish that overwhelmed her senses. Before her, the bloody image began to melt in even more blood, raining down against her skin. Quinn bolted like a racehorse spooked in the starting gate, slamming against the rails in escape.

Rachel's strong arms were around her before she finished the wail in her throat. She pinned her arms down to stop Quinn from knocking her senseless. The brunette pulled her back as their momentum shifted and for a breathless moment they almost toppled off the bed.

"Shhh. Baby its okay." Rachel droned in exhaustion as her sleepy voice coughed inflection into it. She cleared her throat, turning Quinn's pale face to her. "Oh, baby its okay." She pressed the wet hair off Quinn's forehead once the blonde was awake, holding her chin.

The blonde shook in sobs trying to soak warmth from the real alive woman holding her. Ever since their engagement, her subconscious was threatening her with the cruel reality of her life. That moment was still coming, racing like a bullet toward her, ready to cut through the very fiber of her being.

"What is it?" Rachel asked softly pushing a pillow up against the headboard, pulling Quinn closer, her firm hands soothing over the skin she could touch. "Talk to me." She implored against Quinn's consciousness, interjecting into the images that still raged behind her closed eyelids.

"You were dead." Quinn whispered getting her breathing under her control. She cleared her throat, wiping at her eyes and nose without pretense to just how gross that was. She sniffed, burying her face into the light blue silk nighty Rachel was wearing and pillowing her head against a tan bare shoulder. Rachel just held her, ignoring the snotty tear streaked face as she tried to erase the shadows of the terrible dreams.

"But I'm not." Rachel commanded giving a hard squeeze on Quinn's narrow shoulders, confirming the reality. "I'm right here; baby, I'm not going anywhere."

"But you will." Quinn felt her pulse pick up again and she staggered a painful breath in her chest. "You will and I can't stop it. I am supposed to be able to fix people, but you are too broken for me to save. Of all the things in my life that I need to save, I can't save you, angel." She moved closer, her head pounding, irrational words purging from her heart. "No matter what I know or what I do, I can't."

Rachel swallowed and smiled ruefully her tired eyes regarding her fiancée with quiet understanding. "You better than anyone knows that no matter what, people we love leave us." She inclined her head to meet Quinn's upturned face and golden eyes.

She smudged her thumb through the tears on her cheek making Quinn's heart slow. "Do you think I want to imagine a life without you? Of course not," She answered to Quinn's silence, drawing her closer to peck a kiss on the top of her head. "I know I could lose you any moment of any day, and eventually someday I'll lose you no matter what, but that can't stop me from loving you and being with you."

"And what if you lost me tomorrow?" Quinn whispered seriously. "What if I," she swallowed against the lump in her throat, "stepped out into the middle of the road and died?"

Rachel looked away, thoughtful, her intelligent eyes glancing around in thought. When she came with the answer, her face showed the grim understanding. "It would hurt me more than you could ever imagine, but I would find solace in knowing that I did everything I could to make you happy." Rachel sighed heavily. "I have, haven't I?"

"Have what?" Quinn asked softly, lifting her head from Rachel's shoulder and turning to face her. She knew the pain all too well that Rachel was speaking of. And the solace of knowing she had given her best was something Quinn had ever had. She remembered suddenly the old colloquialism that, charity begins at home. She had never been her best for Rachel, just for strangers and patients.

"Made you happy."

"Yes, you are the only good thing in my life." Quinn started crying again and heaved a breath staring up at the ceiling. Her lower lip quivered. "Oh, Jeez. Stupid PMS." She wheezed angrily without meeting Rachel's gaze. The brunette reached out and held her hand.

In the quiet moment between her crumbling to pieces and containing her grief, she felt the tick of time stretch out. Quinn imagined that it would feel like this again; when she sat alone in the future she would remember this moment and the warm hand that held hers.

She covered her face and drew her knees up to her chest, bursting into hysterical tears thinking about that duality; about knowing that she would remember this moment and she would miss it so desperately with everything she had. That she would remember crying and remember Rachel's hand, and know she had lost her forever.

"Come here you poor thing." Rachel wrapped Quinn in her protective embrace and rolled her to the mattress, spooning against her, one arm tightly wrapped around her shoulders. Quinn just continued to cry. "It's okay." She soothed, and the touch of her hand felt amazingly good as it tried to wipe away the pain. "Hey," She edged inserting a little pep in her voice, "will you promise me something?"

The blonde nodded silently, pulling the tired woman closer. "Promise me that you will always be with me, even if I do lose you, that way we can always be together, okay?" Rachel squeezed her shoulder gently. "Promise me that you will haunt me or whatever you Christians do waiting to go to heaven." She joked. Quinn knew she knew better, but she was trying to cheer her up. Rachel's voice was thread bare and tired. It had been the fifth straight night of terrors in a long line of sleepless months that rocked Quinn and Rachel awake.

"We just go straight there, its you Jews that take forever straggling around." Quinn forced a playful response, feeling the exaggerated breath leave Rachel as she silently rolled her eyes in good humor. Quinn didn't need to see it; she could feel the motion and hear it in her words that followed.

"Whatever, I'll take my sweet ass time then, but I promise to haunt you if you haunt me." Quinn listened to her voice without really hearing her words. It was the tone and the sound that lulled her mind, taking the edge off. A creeping reflection spread throughout her, what would Rachel do if given the chance to go back?

"That was supposed to make you laugh." The brunette continued, breaking Quinn's thoughts.

Quinn stared pensively at the mirrored closet, watching Rachel stare down at her. She yawned silently above Quinn, her eyes half-lidded and tired. Despite feeling badly, Quinn needed to indulge in the comfort for a moment.

"If I did die," She rolled to her back, feeling the weight of Rachel's body press against her right side, anchoring her in their warm bed while her mind touched on painful thoughts. Quinn closed her eyes against the burning sensation from lack of sleep and tears and wrapped her arm under Rachel's slim waist. She began again. "If I did die and you had the chance to do everything again, what would you do differently?"

Rachel rested her forehead against Quinn's, the flutter of her eyelashes soft against Quinn's cheek. They stayed like that for a long time, until Quinn almost thought that Rachel had fallen asleep. When she opened her eyes, the brunette did too, pulling back. She looked emotionless, which was a feat for her overly expressive eyes. "I can imagine that I wouldn't do a damn thing differently because honestly, I can't think of a thing in my life I would want to change." She sighed, "But I will tell you this."

She adjusted herself closer, splaying a steadying hand on Quinn's chest. "If I knew you were going to die, I would be there on that street and I would keep it from happening if I had to throw myself in the way to stop it. I don't care what I would have to do; I would gladly do it to protect you."

"Would you?" Quinn whispered.

Rachel scoffed. "Of course, baby." She shook her head. "Fate or not I would rather try to save you than do nothing. If I had to get a gun and shoot people to stop it from happening I wouldn't think twice." She cleared her throat against the brash angry words. "I would kill anyone who got in my way and if you still died, well then," She ran a hand through her hair as she started to grow angrier with the thought of it. "Just send me to prison because I wouldn't care anymore anyway."

It made Quinn smile as Rachel snuggled into her, that fire of determination still smoldering in her eyes. "I am not kidding; I would rather get the chair then not try and still lose you." She sighed, allowing the coiled energy to evaporate as she kissed Quinn's cheek. She rested her lips against the blonde's neck, kissing softly as she lay beside her. "I love you too much," she yawned, "too much to not fight with my very last breath for you."

Quinn felt Rachel's heart slow against her side, the strong arm holding her tightly, relaxing. After a moment, the tell tale even breathing lulled against Quinn's neck as Rachel fell asleep.

She laid in the dark staring at the thin tan arm draped over her rising and falling chest. Rachel was right. Regardless of what the outcome was, she would rally and fight it. This was her only life now and if she didn't have the balls to do something this time, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

So Quinn decided that no matter what she would fight, because if she could live her whole life over again, she would happily die to keep the world she had created. She met her own gaze in the mirror, cataloging the strength she felt in that moment away for the days when she had lost all hope.

* * *

And she held that flame in her heart, the same way she held a solid smile on her face as she stared down the beach at Rachel. The cocoa lathered beauty was walking toward her, hair twisted into a mass of camellia and curls. She wore a long cream dress that clung as she walked. She knew people were watching, a few rows of their closest friends flanking them.

Quinn didn't see anyone other than her; the endlessly brilliant smile and infinite eyes that had saved her- a million times over saved her. Quinn drowned in the image on a beachside in California, where the white sand met the blue ocean. Where sunlight kisses were immortalized in an album of the perfect life they had, and fueled Quinn's passion to forever keep it.

And beyond the horizon, far away from the glitter of sand and champagne, the storm clouds raced toward them on their unalterable path.

* * *

_Fin Part I_


	13. Remember to Forget

Chapter 12

**Remember to Forget**

May 15th 2022. (10 years more)

It rained.

Hazel eyes traced lines the water made along the plate glass window before her. She remembered standing right here when she had asked Blake for the favor that ended her life. He had come to meet her briefly three months after Rachel died. It would be exactly ten years from today.

It was raining like this too.

She had asked him to prescribe anti anxiety narcotics and an anti nauseate to her; drugs she couldn't prescribe herself since she had already picked up the actual medication that would kill her. It would have raised the red flag, so she had turned to the only source she had left. Quinn leaned her forehead against the glass. She couldn't believe she had done it- the bravest act a **coward** could ever make.

"_Quinn?" Blake's voice was nervous as he regarded her. He put a hand on her arm, pulling her into a hug. "Come here sweetheart." His hug was warm and solid. She felt so small in his embrace, such a stark contrast to the normal height she felt she had when she hugged Rachel. The realization snapped her head off his shoulder and brought tears to her eyes. She pulled away. "Talk to me, are you okay?"_

"_I am." She lied, firming her arms around her. "I think I just need to get my anxiety under control."_

"_Is that why you called me?" He whispered. "Too proud to prescribe it to yourself?" He lowered his voice as a group of residents walked by, shooting pitying looks and then hurrying away. Quinn realized everyone knew. There wasn't a single person in the building that didn't know about the tragic story of Rachel and Quinn Fabray. Even the myopic right wing extremists had looked at her with sorrow in their eyes, when months before they had been silently wishing that something terrible would happen._

"_Yeah." Quinn stared down at her shoes, twitching her toes under the canvas of her Vans. She felt disjoined standing in the hospital wearing tennis shoes and frayed jeans, instead of her normal skirt and pumps. "I just want to keep everything on the up and up, you know?" She sighed. What a good liar she was! She met his gaze. "I just don't want people thinking I'm abusing my ability to self-medicate."_

"_Understandable." He leaned back against the window, making Quinn's stomach churn at the long fall down to the ground. "I just want to see you get back on your feet. I know it is going to take some time, a lot of time," he amended, "But we're here for you."_

_Quinn nodded silently. She would never get back on her feet. Every breath was a struggle, and if she wasn't so vain she would have done it a more dirty way. She didn't want to live through it with ligature burns; gun shot wounds or a broken neck. Her mind flashed to Rachel's broken frame and she shook the image away before it could crush her. "I know and I thank you."_

_She felt the twitch of nervousness as he stared at her. She knew how horrible she looked and she didn't want him to probe further. She ran a hand through her hair, which was thinning from the stress and misery. She had every single physiological marker of severe depression. Weight loss, jaundice, hair loss, appetite loss, the list went on. She looked up at him through swollen black ringed eyes; Blake only seemed to see the Quinn who was his friend. "I'll help anyway I can, because I loved her too and I know it is killing you."_

_For a moment, she thought she heard him condoning what she was about to do. Quinn gave him a fragile fleeting smile. "Thank you for everything. You mean the world to me." He wrote her the prescription as he silenced his pager without thought. Quinn had had the same automatic responses, and she sniffled a little as she realized she had stopped silencing her work demands when she and Rachel were on the phone, or having lunch. She had forgotten what the priorities were._

"_I do have to go honey." He gave her another bone crushing hug and kissed the top of her head. "Can I take you to lunch tomorrow?" She nodded, she wouldn't be here to follow through, but there would be no sense in denying him the joy of this one little gesture._

"_I wouldn't miss it for the world." She whispered softly against the rough cotton of his medical coat. She tightened her hand around the prescription sheet._

Quinn sighed heavily, she wouldn't have missed it for the world, but she **did** for Rachel. She sat down on the stairs beside her and stared out at the dark gray world. Her phone sparked to life with Journey's, Faithfully. It was a song her wife had sung many years before and it still played in her mind.

"Hey there." Quinn whispered, burring the greeting with a warm tone.

"Hey yourself." A pause. "How is the rain treating you, love?"

"It's making my shift really busy." Quinn admitted, she closed her eyes and rested her head in her hand. "Its been a long day." She exhaled, soothed from the voice on the other end of the line.

"I have some good news baby, and I wanted to call you first." She heard the barely veiled excitement for the first time and Quinn perked up.

"What?" She swallowed to draw out the suspense. She already knew Rachel aced the audition. "You got the part didn't you?"

"Yes." She heard Rachel squeal and Quinn jumped up in the hallway.

"Oh wow! That is so great!" Quinn hopped up a step and then jumped down three, thrilled beyond thought until faces glanced at her as they passed. She waved, embarrassed and then turned back to the phone. "I can't believe it, I mean I do, but," She cupped her hand around the phone. "That is fucking fantastic baby!"

"Yeah," Rachel's voice wavered, "I would have to spend the next three weeks pulling like 16 hour days though, which means that we won't really see each other since you work the evening shift."

This is something Quinn knew would happen and it dampened her happiness. She reminded herself that the current pang in her heart would abate soon. Eventually this would become common place and it wouldn't hurt as much. She would just need to get enough seniority to switch to a day shift. "Its okay, I could pull a rabbit out of my hat and do something fantastic and then request a shift trade."

"If they know what's good for them they'll give it to you." Rachel had a smile in her voice.

"I'm so proud of you." Quinn stared out across the rain smeared parking lot and the silence stretched out between them.

"I'm looking at the rain." The brunette whispered, "It makes me feel cold when you aren't here."

"I'll be home soon." Quinn confirmed, feeling the exact same way.

A laugh. "Wake me when you get home?"

"With kisses?"

"With anything you want baby." There was flirtation in that voice. Quinn smirked.

"No dirty innuendo on the phone while I'm at work, it makes it hard to stay here and focus."

"Okay, I'm sorry." Behind her voice Quinn heard water running. She listened for a moment and then couldn't resist the question.

"What are you doing?"

"Hold on." Rachel put her down and straining Quinn swore she heard rain and footsteps. Quinn rested her head against the glass again, staring down at the hospital entrance. People moved back and forth below her and Quinn wished that she would see the dark head of her wife come bobbing beneath her. "Sorry."

"Where did you go?" Quinn listened as Rachel sucked in a breath. Quinn's mind wandered. "What are you doing?" She grinned stupidly at her reflection.

"I'm sitting in the bathtub to take the chill off." The brunette whispered, "And I'm drinking a glass of wine."

Quinn arched an eyebrow, "yeah?" She prodded glancing around and resuming her seat on the stairs. Rachel, water and wine usually was a sexual powder keg. She cleared her throat trying to act casual in case anyone could see her. "What else?" A supervisor of hers passed by and she quickly followed, "We already ran a chest x-ray and a C panel, all normal."

"Someone just walk by?" She purred sexily in Quinn's ear.

"Yeah," The blonde huffed a breath as she waited for the figure to depart. "What else?" She edged again.

"You mean am I touching anything or should we get another procedure done?" Rachel laughed, "Now now… naughty thing. No talk of this at work, remember?" Quinn could practically see the steam in the small bathroom, and the smoky sensuality radiating from Rachel's smiling face.

"Don't play with me." Quinn smiled through the words rolling her eyes as a warbled breath came through the phone, making her forget she was on call and in a hallway at work. "Oh baby."

The sound echoed around the hallway and Quinn covered her mouth with her hand at her automatic response to that sound. Rachel burst into laughter as a sloshing sound came through the phone.

"You are gonna get me fired." Quinn nibbled her bottom lip wishing the furious blush off her face.

"Probably, but you know you like it deep down inside."

"My feelings on this are actually pretty superficial and obvious. Hence the building now knows how I feel."

"Oh really, well I like it deep down inside. See?" Quinn listened for a moment and as Rachel's soft cry came through the phone she braced herself against the glass and released the breath she wasn't aware she was holding. It was the hottest things she had ever heard. The pager beside her beeped to life in a flurry of high pitched tones making her jump.

She stared at it mutely as it spoiled the moment and silenced the offensive item. It felt good. "Baby. Go to work." Rachel teased in her ear. "I'll be home and when you get here you can finish the job."

"I don't consider it work." Quinn smiled imagining it. Another alert powered through her electronic leash and she quirked her brow at it. "Oh no." Multi casualty incident, it read.

"Go." Rachel nudged her verbally. "Save some lives. I love you."

"I love you." Quinn whispered and clipped the phone shut.

The scream of the siren at the emergency doors blanketed Quinn's reality as she flew into action. She had forgotten how invigorating it felt to work an ER shift. It had been many years since she had felt the brush of tension that this type of work created. She had gotten soft working on tennis elbows and esophageal reflux in her own practice; this is why she had lost her edge. Maybe if she still had had these quick automatic responses she might have been able to save Rachel.

No, she couldn't think about that anymore. She was going to save her this time. No more regrets.

Quinn assaulted the door as the paramedics came through. "What do we have?" She asked, regarding the gurney that rattled into the ER. Quinn wasn't an adrenaline junkie who worked the Emergency Room for kicks; everything was personal to her, so her hands vibrated as her sympathetic nervous system punched into overdrive. Aided by Rachel's teases, she felt the engine inside her rev like a sports car. It had been a while.

The older paramedic was the first to respond. "A cop took one on 78th and Lex during a shootout. He lost consciousness about five minutes ago." He regarded Quinn with an air of wary concern. "This guy's part of the family, you know? Can we get a real doctor on this since he is one of us?"

Quinn felt her face contort right before she grabbed the chart out of his hand. She shrugged. "No, all that 'us' have is me, so deal. Put him in three." The nerve, Quinn bristled and about spat in his face. It took her a moment to remember all this man saw was a shaking second year resident and not the more than capable doctor of ten years she was.

She paced the gurney, stethoscope probing for breath sounds as the paramedics ranted on through her ear buds. They spit out the particulars of the vital signs and without additional flare deposited him into trauma three.

The next victim poured in, followed by a third and a fourth. Silently Quinn racked the stethoscope around her neck knowing it was going to be a very long, very difficult night.

Five hours later, Quinn used the grips in her hand to flip intricate stitches through the disjointed skin before her. Being a resident again was a humbling experience. She had practiced medicine longer than most of the people who now ruled over her with cavalier disregard. She was grateful she knew what she was doing, because she would have failed miserably if not.

She looked away from the task, letting her eyes refocus behind the plastic face shield and then she went back to her work. Her shoulders hurt, legs hurt, arms hurt; her body unprepared for the long hours and little rest she had been getting. It was a battle of stamina now, not academic torment. She tied of the last stitch and set aside her bloody tools, regarding the long jagged wound she had closed. She ungloved her hands.

"Okay done." She peered at the work, announcing her completion to no one in particular. The comatose man before her could admire her work when he regained consciousness. She wrapped the gloves in a wad and shot them into the sterile container, saluting her exit with a flip of the hospital curtain.

"Hey Quinn!" Blake yelled at her. He slid up to her with a smile chiding that the cat had eaten the canary. "Nice work with the MCI earlier. You ran the fucking wheels off that shit." In his usual way he gave her a fist bump which evolved into 'old school' things like explosions.

"Thanks." She beamed. They had formed a friendship, or in Quinn's mind, reformed one. She knew he would grow into one hell of a doctor and an even better friend. He was also the last one to give up on Rachel the day she died, and that fact alone was enough for her to tolerate his years of stupidity.

"Yeah so, Murphy thought you did great. I think he sent a hot little number to give you a lap dance."

"Yeah?" Quinn laughed. "You know how I collect all the bitches." She replied sarcastically.

"No but seriously, some high-ticket-hot-ass lady is looking for you." Blake pointed toward the emergency counter where Quinn turned. Rachel was standing at the counter, talking to security.

Quinn cocked her head; that never happened. She reached down into her pocket and dumbly looked at her phone. Six missed calls. "That's my wife." She said absently as she moved toward the emergency doors, slamming her hand against the automatic opener.

"Whoa! Really?"

His voice faded behind her as Quinn turned the corner. "What's wrong?"

And right before Rachel replied, Quinn remembered. Today was the day that her father died. She had forgotten. May 15, 2022. Quinn, despite all her attempts at lying to herself was letting the same thing happen again. She was forgetting what mattered, and what had happened before.

"My dad…" Rachel whispered before she started crying.


	14. Just Breathe

Chapter 13

**Just Breathe**

June 6th, 2025 (7 years more)

"So, I walked out." Rachel pressed open the door, and Quinn followed her in laughing.

"You have some guts I'll tell you that." Quinn twisted her purse off her shoulder and dropped it by the door. She juggled the brown bag of groceries in her arms.

"Well, I'm the most talented person there and the director knows it, so it wasn't really a gamble." Rachel continued, dropping her keys on the side table and in ritual placing a kiss to her fingers which she promptly positioned on her father's picture.

Quinn watched her motion and smiled sadly. Two years had passed since that wild desperate night and the red eye flight. Quinn knew the kind of pain that Rachel and her remaining father had felt. It was a hurt nothing could erase. So in silent eulogy Rachel kissed the photo every time she walked through the door.

"I had better get this in the freezer." Rachel lifted the innocuous white bag and wagged her eyebrows before leaving Quinn in the entry way.

So much had happened in just a few small years. They had moved from their tiny apartment in the city, to a small Cape Cod style house in the north suburbs. The neighborhood reminded Quinn a lot of home in Ohio; the place was packed with honestly nice people. It was nothing like the stuffy and admittedly cold house they had owned in her other life.

Quinn had finally finished school and was working in the city at St. James with Blake. In a year she would open up a small practice and be home every night for dinner and take three hour lunches with Rachel. She smiled.

And then there was the bag Rachel was holding. Quinn closed the door behind her and leaned against it thinking. They were really going to do it. She gave a wry chuckle at the nervousness she felt, but a promise was a promise. Rachel gave her five years to finish medical school, one longer than she should have needed, and now it was time. They were going to start a family.

"You coming?" The brunette called from the kitchen, summoning Quinn from her thoughts.

"Yeah." She glanced in the grocery bag, "Wouldn't want your push pops to melt."

"Our push pops. Don't even lie to yourself Quinn. You'll eat more than half of them before you get in here."

Quinn smiled and reached in, tearing the corner of the box open a little before she set it down on the counter. "You were right," she pointed at the rumpled edge she created, "I was already getting started."

Rachel just rolled her eyes with a glimmer of a smile.

Quinn made quick work of their groceries pausing when she put away the ice cream to stare at the genetic marvel sitting in the freezer. She dwelled on the fact that it was good to have friends.

"_So, Quinn tells me a lot about you." Dr Darajit Hurunta extended her hand in her formal way of greeting. Rachel shook it and took a seat on the other side of the long desk._

"_I've heard a lot about you as well." Rachel looked around casually, "I like this office, it feels good."_

"_Thank you, I stole some pointers from your wife about interior design, but don't tell her." She joked as she flipped open a file chart and regarded it for a moment before raising her head._

_Dara, as Quinn knew her, was a friend and a fellowship recipient for her work in genetics, primarily in gene blending and fertility. Her dark eyes honed in on both Quinn and Rachel as they stared at her pensively._

"_So, yeah. What does it say Dara? You are killing us." Quinn asked breaking the tension._

"_A lot of longevity, good genetic structure; I got some really good typing off your code Rachel, but Quinn yours is the best I've had. I could practically carbon copy you if I wanted to." Dara folded the cover shut. "Which I wouldn't because one is enough." Her British accent tickled Quinn's ear. "I don't really care what the tests say though. I knew it would be good." She sat back. "You're both very healthy young women." Her eyes firmed on the short brunette._

"_Now Rachel," Rachel grabbed Quinn's hand under the desk, a motion that didn't go unnoticed as Dara edged a brief smile, "Don't worry, your fertility test came back very favorable." She spun the folder pointing to a nondescript figure. "Its 24.2% increased uterine lining under supplements which is high normal for implantation." She pulled the folder back as Rachel continued to stare down at the table._

"_What does that mean?" She hesitated, her hand squeezing Quinn's. "Does that mean we can do this?"_

_Dara nodded, "I'm very confident in your successful impregnation."_

_Quinn felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. With all the things that had changed in her life, she was fearful this might too. It was an irrational fear because she knew it would eventually happen, but just the same it lifted a pressure off her shoulders._

"_What attributes did you want to pick for the "shuttle" ova?"_

"_We didn't want to pick." Quinn confirmed. "We just wanted it to happen."_

_Dara smiled brightly, lighting up her whole face and demeanor in the single motion. "You want it to be a little more like a natural gene mix?" She sighed happily and flipped the cover open again. "I did take the liberty to pick some traits I wanted to include, but I will just address a few things with you here and with your permission, I will focus the blending on the list I've highlighted."_

_Rachel moved closer, leaning on her armrest to get closer to Quinn, "All right." The blonde placed a hand on her back in quiet solidarity._

"_I'm thinking the blonde hair might be a problem because Rachel has no recessive trait for it. I don't like doubling up on your DNA strands Quinn, despite how good they are, so she will definitely be a brunette." Dara scanned the print out and flipped the page._

"_I can do the light hazel eyes of your Quinn, and probably put her adult height somewhere around yours as well."_

_Rachel extended a hand across the table, silencing the additional words. Dara looked up. "Please. I trust that you know Quinn well enough and well, you probably know me better than anyone because you have everything that makes me, me- splattered across those pages," Rachel whispered gently, "I trust you to pick the good and the not so good and just make her a harmony of the two of us."_

_Quinn smiled and rubbed Rachel's back, watching the emotion thread through her face. "I think we just want our baby, and however she comes is fine by us." Quinn leaned back a little and mouthed the words: Musician or Singer._

_Dara nodded, absently scribbling on her list. "Two more things then; do you want a boy by chance?"_

_Rachel was the first to answer, shooting a hesitant look at Quinn. "I don't. It would mean that you subbed in someone else's genes into the equation" Rachel smiled a little. "I don't want anything except what we can make together."_

_Quinn felt that spark of connection between them and she blinked her eyes and breathed deeply. Rachel of old had picked the boy, to mix things up. Quinn had always felt a little strange about it, but had never wanted to voice it. This felt right and the strength of Rachel's voice when she said it, made Quinn feel so vulnerable and loved._

"_Okay." Dara got up and circled the desk, leaning back on it between them. She tapped the folder in her hands against her leg. "I must ask this and I apologize for how abrupt this will be; I mean no disrespect." She gave a level gaze. "Do you wish for me to remove the gene that would make her homosexual?"_

_Quinn almost choked on the air she was exhaling. It was something Rachel and she had never discussed. It would be so much easier for their daughter it they did. The anguish and confusion, the ostracizing and potential alienation could be totally eliminated. It also drove another thought home, one she hadn't really contemplated before. She had never realized she was gay until this moment, she just saw herself as in love with Rachel. She was just one human being, in love with another. The realization made her feel alien in her own skin for a moment._

_Rachel was thoughtful when Quinn looked at her for the answer, because she just didn't seem to have one that was right. The brunette smiled wistfully. "I think that when it comes to that, you should just shake up the beaker and whatever happens- happens." She firmed her defiant chin, "We will just leave it up to a higher power to decide because no one should be able to control who a person falls in love with."_

_And it was done. Eight weeks later the protozoa had been uploaded with the information, injected into stripped donor sperm and they were ready. Rachel and she had been offered to do the impregnation in a clinical setting, but Quinn had politely declined. In another life, Rachel had said it made her feel bad and emotionless, and Quinn wouldn't repeat that for the highest success rate in the world. She could buy another thirty thousand dollar procedure, she couldn't buy the feelings Rachel felt about it._

_Besides, Quinn knew she owed Rachel something more than a cold hospital table and a courtesy hand hold. She was going to come with a whole lot more than that; if not for Rachel then to make up for her own cold emotionless moments that lead to Beth._

"Quinn?" Rachel whispered beside her, startling her out of her thoughts. She dropped the ice cream.

"Yeah, um… sorry," she shook her head, "got lost there for a minute."

"You okay?" Rachel scooped the box up and placed it in the freezer, closing the cold away.

"Yes." Quinn took a breath, releasing it slowly. "I just can't believe we are going to do this."

"Yeah, tell me about it." Rachel moved away quickly, busying herself with anything other than looking at Quinn. The blonde watched the evasive gaze.

"I want to so much, but wow, it is such a huge step." Quinn folded her arms around herself and leaned back against the butcher block island counter. "I mean I think my heart is overflowing with all this emotion about it, because I can't process half of what is going on. I haven't felt this way before."

"It almost kinda embarrasses me, talking about it." Rachel stated suddenly, turning on the faucet and proceeding to attack the one bowl in the sink. She pumped a full blast of dishwashing liquid onto the sponge and absently made it foamy. Quinn knew she wasn't thinking; Rachel would have had a freak out by using all that soap for one dish.

"Why does it embarrass you?"

Rachel shrugged without speaking. Quinn watched her set the bowl back into the sink dirtying it again. She rinsed her hands and then wiped them on her white skirt. The blonde stared quizzically at her wife as she turned to her. "I just was so ready for it, but now I'm so nervous and scared. It makes me feel strange and it is so intimate." Rachel whispered without meeting her eyes.

"Do you not want to?" Quinn asked warily. What was happening?

"I do, absolutely I do." Rachel took a steadying breath, "I just feel so vulnerable and I'm not used to that feeling." She stared at her feet. Quinn did too, measuring the gloss pink nails and the tan toes peeking out her high heeled sandals. "Usually, you make me feel strong, but right now, standing here and talking about making a baby with you, I feel so open to you and well, vulnerable."

Rachel shook her head. "I think I'm having a small freak out here, because all I want to do is bolt out of the room."

Quinn smiled lopsidedly, grateful she hadn't. "No, I get it." It felt that way for her as well. "It's scary because we are doing something really permanent and unalterable." The blonde reached over and grabbed the kitchen towel from the refrigerator door handle, passing it to the brunette. "I felt the same way in the office when you said that you didn't want to have a son." Quinn met Rachel's eyes as they came up to her. "It made me feel so indescribable, scared and happy maybe, but mostly in love with you and willing to do anything you wanted me to."

Rachel smiled quietly, "I do feel that way, both about having a baby and about how you described that emotion." She twisted her hands around one another. "I need a push pop."

Quinn laughed, "Okay." She reached for the freezer door at the same time Rachel did, their hands touching. She stared at their combined grip. "You have no idea what I feel right now, just touching you." The blonde whispered honestly, threading her fingers with Rachel's.

"What do you feel?" Rachel pulled her hand back, sliding the warm grip against the skin of Quinn's arm while the blonde retrieved the ice cream.

"I can't even describe it." She handed over the cardboard ice cream holder. She thought about it, tried to feel what it was she couldn't explain. "I feel like everything in my life has driven me to this one moment and that I haven't ever loved you as much as I do right now."

Rachel nodded. She tossed the wrapper in the trash and twirled the cylindrical ice cream, staring at it absently.

"What are you thinking?" Quinn wondered. "I find it kinda creepy when you aren't running at the mouth."

Rachel laughed, licking the orange ice cream. She swirled it around in her mouth buying time before she answered. "I just want to surrender to you, and I'm scared to."

Quinn was surprised, and the shock clearly outlined on her face. She had never had this conversation with Rachel before. She wondered if it was because she didn't put enough time in to build this level of trust or if she had opened a door she shouldn't have by giving herself to Rachel the way she had. "Wow, really?"

"I know how awful that sounds, but it's something like that..." Rachel sighed eating more ice cream, she moved away, keeping a safe three foot bubble from Quinn's confused look. "I feel like we have done anything and everything to one another, but this will stay with me forever. Today, tonight, whenever it happens… I will always remember this." Rachel laughed. "I think I'm getting performance anxiety and over analyzing the whole thing. It should be natural, but it is anything but."

Quinn nodded, "I look at it like this. There are literally millions of couples out there that do this. I don't know what they feel toward their mate, or what they do in their bedroom, but I'm sure that we can't love each other any less."

The brunette nodded staring at her melting ice cream, "Yeah, you're right. I guess it is normal to feel like this, but suddenly I don't feel sexy enough or," She struggled with the words, "perfect… enough to wear the moniker."

"Which title is that?" Quinn asked curiously.

"Mom."

The blonde smiled softly from her position in the kitchen. Her eyes took in the image before her. The long tan legs racing up into a white A line skirt and blue collared blouse pulled suggestively over her lithe body. Rachel's long tendrils of dark hair, highlighted with auburn tracing mingled with the bronze and soot of her eyes. "You are nuts." Quinn whispered, "You just blow my mind."

"Why?" She produced, her mouth mumbling the word awkwardly around a mouthful of sherbet. "That was rude of me," She swallowed and continued, "Why is that?"

That was almost the last straw of cuteness Quinn could take. "Because you look like a goddess, sing like and angel, dress like a model and all of that is accompanied by the sweetest person I have ever known. So that covers the sexy part." Quinn ticked the items off on her fingers as she moved forward. She slid her arm around Rachel's back and plucked the ice cream away from her.

"And the perfect part; you reach out to everyone with soft forgiving hands." She pressed a kiss to the forehead before her. "You self-deprecate when you think no one hears and wait for the accolades you can't give yourself. You work tirelessly and put your whole heart into everything you do." Quinn smiled against the warm skin. "And you can cook too. If that doesn't sound like a perfect mom I don't think one exists."

"Thank you." Rachel whispered closing her eyes and soaking into Quinn's embrace. "I love you."

"I love you."

"Quinn?"

"Yeah?" The blonde felt the flicker of electricity ignite in the way Rachel said her name.

"Let's do this."

"Right now?" Quinn asked softly, sliding her hands up Rachel's arms, feeling chills follow her finger tips.

"Yes." Rachel pulled her head back and glanced up slightly. "Right now."

Quinn had to swallow as her throat went a little dry. She had just talked up Rachel and now here she was, those eyes searching her soul. It scared her to death. She hadn't been this afraid the first time. The brunette was right; in a clinical setting it wasn't anywhere near this intimate. Quinn felt Rachel slip out of her arms. "Give me five minutes; I'll meet you in the bedroom." She winked coyly. "Make sure you bring the stuff in the freezer."

The blonde stood motionless in the kitchen, her hands frozen to her sides. After a moment she steadied them and retrieved the bag from the freezer. She opened it. Quinn repeated over and over in her head that it was just like any medical procedure she had ever done. It was the only way she could compel her hands to stop shaking. She heard the bathroom door close as she stood staring at the package.

She reached in and pulled free the instructions Dara had been kind enough to write up. Quinn read the sharp lettering, feeling mortified that her friend had scribbled down the words knowing that Quinn would be reading them.

_Quinn,_

_Give it 30 minutes to thaw. I apologize to Rachel for the coldness._

_Incline her hips to 45 degrees, insert syringe with seamen toward pelvic floor. Pass hollow point through cervix (slight pinching sensation is normal) and inject. Use diaphragm to block seepage. - Dara_

She stared right through the paper, unable to even see anything before her. It was amazing how her medical professionalism didn't preclude her from feeling as awkward as a high school boy over everything she just read. She fought the cruising of color up her neck as a blush reddened her face.

She set the sheet down and peeked at the long neck syringe, silver container and rubber disk. The note had said she needed to give it thirty minutes to warm. She glanced at the clock, 5:28.

Quinn wrapped her hands around the entire package and soundlessly moved through the house, passing wedding pictures and images of the vacation they took to Bermuda. She stopped in the doorway, staring at Rachel as she adjusted the pillows on the bed, and then changed her mind and moved them again. The rip of emotion that touched her made chills rise on the blonde's arms. "I love you, Rachel."

The brunette turned to her and smiled. "I love you too."

It still had the same effect every time. Butterflies launched in her stomach as her wife beckoned her forward and she slid into her arms, warm hands on her back. Quinn kissed her nose gently. No matter what nervousness she felt she was fixed when the beautiful angel whispered those words. It plucked on her heart strings.

Quinn could feel something deeper at work between them as time stretched around them. It was as if she could see right into Rachel's soul, and every touch of hers transcended Quinn's flesh. The blonde twined the long dark hair in her fingers and studied Rachel's face, tracing the lines and curves she had memorized, letting the afternoon sunlight flatter the perfection before her. She finally closed her eyes as their lips met.

The blonde's tongue touched Rachel's, caressing and soft. They both moved with well rehearsed touches, cultivated by the uncountable seductions between them. Rachel held her tightly, running her nails against her scalp and down her neck; pressing up into her mouth with a grin of satisfaction as Quinn shivered.

Quinn caught her lip with her teeth, knowing she had been betrayed, and wanting more of those heavenly touches. Rachel went back to the motions, pacing feathery kisses along Quinn's lips. It felt good, but more than that, Quinn recognized a fundamental fact that magnified the ecstasy those trained hands created as they moved down her body.

She was Quinn's wife, her love; her everything. No one knew Rachel like she did. They didn't know the gentleness of her heart, the feel of her body, the look on her face when they looked at one another. Quinn's hazel eyes studied Rachel's face again, and she swore those dark pools of eternity were thinking the same thing; both of them knowing definitively that they owned each other.

Rachel nuzzled her nose against Quinn's chin and kissed lightly at the skin under her lips. "Do you feel that?" She traced her hand down to grab the taller woman's hand. Grabbing her other hand, Quinn slipped their fingers together. The blonde was dizzy as she felt Rachel's breath warm against her cheek, soothing the flushed skin. "I feel so in touch with you right now. I don't even know how to explain it."

Quinn could see the sea of emotion and fear in her face as they regarded one another. "I'm ready." The magnitude of the words landed on Rachel's narrow shoulders, but she couldn't stop talking. "I need this and I've never been more ready, but I'm scared I'll fail miserably. I want to be a better mom than mine was."

"You already are." And that was it.

Her words cored through Rachel and herself, summoning emotions deeper than anything she had ever felt. She wanted to scream, or cry, or fall deeper in love, but it wasn't possible. When their lips came together, the kiss was different. The blonde kissed her like she was the mother of her child, gently and softly, almost piously.

The blonde's hands were controlling and powerful as her lips owned Rachel's mouth. "I love you." The brunette repeated over and over between kisses while Quinn worked the buttons loose on her blouse.

"You are my life." Quinn's voice was husky with emotion and she grappled for more skin to touch as she smoothed back the light blue shirt. Toward the bed they moved, and Quinn laid Rachel flat, spreading a wave of dark hair over the cream bedspread. She captured the image to remember forever, just as Rachel was doing as Quinn slid out of her top. She pulled her hair free of her ponytail, ruffling it out.

"I'll never forget this moment." Rachel whispered as Quinn moved over her. "You're so beautiful." She offered quietly as she surrendered.

* * *

Peace.

The tick of the clock in the entry way chimed eight. The mid evening shadows stretched to mingle with the glow of a nightlight flickering to life. The fading light found them asleep, twined in one another. Rachel was on her back, cradled into Quinn's embrace, a pillow securely angling her hips upward. The blonde still had her hands in dark mused hair where she had fallen asleep stroking through it.

And everything was perfect as they dreamt about the long wide open path their future would take.


	15. Breaking Quinn

Chapter 14

**Breaking Quinn**

_Quinn stared at her reflection in the mirror while Rachel unwrapped the pregnancy test beside her. The brunette was nervous, her hands shaking. She looked up into the hazel gaze. "So, I guess, we will see…"_

_She was late, very un-Rachel late. The woman could call it to the hour and here she was teetering on three weeks with no period before she broke down and bought the test. Quinn wondered if that meant something, since they both talked about doing it two weeks after the insemination- five weeks ago._

"_Yep." Quinn steadied her breath. Rachel turned away and sat down on the toilet beside the sink. She looked over and Quinn caught hold of the single thought moving through her head, "no matter what it says, I love you."_

_Rachel nodded silently. Very un-Rachel silent. And Quinn found her own reflection in the mirror to give her wife a modicum of privacy in the small space. Quinn looked frightened, she admitted. She didn't know what of, but the end result left pallor on her already fair skin making her ghostly._

_The toilet flushed and Rachel gave her the test to hold while she finished up. Quinn stared down at it, remembering when she had done this; in a tiny public bathroom a lifetime ago. Her eyes focused on the item in her hand as if it held the secret of the universe, and in a way it did._

"_Thanks." Rachel warbled softly, taking the test from Quinn's hand and fixing her eyes to the small window. "How long do we have to wait?" She asked softly._

_Quinn replied automatically with the numbers printed on the inside of her mind. She would never forget those awful moments alone. They seemed to have dragged into eternity. "Ten minutes."_

"_Okay."_

"**_You_**_ okay?" Quinn asked pointedly at the lowered dark head._

"_No." And that was all she said for a long time as the silence stretched out. Quinn thought a million things in that time. She wondered if now had been the right time? She worried that perhaps Rachel hadn't been ready. "I'm really scared Quinn." The brunette edged softly, her eyes never leaving the test in her hands._

"_I am too." The blonde admitted. "But everything will be okay because we can do this."_

"_I know." Rachel nodded matter-of-factly ending the conversation._

_They waited. The drip of the faucet caught Quinn's attention and she promised herself she would call a handyman as soon as she had a spare moment. Her eyes went to Rachel's reflection, her shoulders slumped over as she shifted and leaned against the sink. Quinn traced the outline of her shoulder blades as she breathed. Her hand absently went to the faucet as she tightened the handle to see if that would stop the leak. The sound of the water mimicked a Japanese torturing device as it hammered in the endless uncertainty around her._

"_I lost three pounds these past few weeks." Rachel whispered._

"_You know that is hardly anything right?" The blonde replied turning to lean against the sink as well, their hips touching. She slid a supportive arm around the dark woman's shoulders. "It's going to be okay. Stress will do that."_

"_Stress can make me late too Quinn." She sighed heavily. "I don't want to disappoint you. I feel like if this doesn't happen it will be my fault."_

_She rubbed her thumb on the exposed shoulder. "It isn't."_

_And her eyes were on the test again and the silence screamed louder than any sound in the world. The plus sign faded into view like a phantom and even though Quinn saw it, she looked right through it._

_Rachel didn't move and neither did the blonde. They stood motionless until the pink color solidified and held steady like a blazing inferno of color._

"_It's positive," Quinn whispered._

"_It is." Rachel replied and then her weight shifted. "Quinn, I'm pregnant." She turned into the blonde's embrace, burying her face in the shoulder._

"_Oh my god, Rachel." Quinn felt like the wind was knocked out of her. "Rachel. I can't… I, oh my god."_

_The soft laugh bubbled up from her arms and a kiss scorched her lips. "I'm pregnant." And then the joyous screaming started._

September 28th, 2025 (7 years more)

And the joy turned to anger and angst as the hormones kicked in.

Quinn found herself realizing why people hated her when she was pregnant in high school the first time. It was infinitely difficult. Rachel seemed hell bent on hitting and crushing every button Quinn had that she knew about, which the blonde recognized as at least forty thousand.

She had become practically bipolar, swinging moods that brought her up and slammed her down, leaving Quinn to pick up pieces and then dodge the bullets in the next instant. She plead patience with herself as the days dragged by, hoping that soon the anguish would subside.

Quinn found herself smoking again just as she had done in her past life. She used the soothing deep breaths and rushes of chemical inhibitors to keep her from losing her mind. A little rat poison didn't hurt either; she remembered the commercials mutely as she stared at the filter between the fingers. She flicked it away even though she needed more time to gather herself. Her eyes found the ashy evening sky and she closed them.

"Quinn!" Rachel screamed from inside, leaving Quinn to glance around the side of the house furtively. It was her angry scream and dutifully Quinn hung her head. She retrieved and sprayed the body splash she kept hidden for just this purpose and hesitantly entered the house.

The kitchen was brightly lit and the dark head turned to her as Quinn slid inside, wiping her feet at the door. "What took you so long?"

Quinn cocked her head, her frayed nerves rising up before she could swallow them down. "Excuse me?"

Rachel had her hands in the sink, methodically scrubbing out her aggressions on the plate ware. "You heard me."

"I just went outside to the trash." Quinn lied. She pointed over her shoulder lamely in the general direction of the exterior cans.

Rachel stared at her evenly, "I know you were out there smoking Quinn, don't lie to me. I can smell it on you." For effect she sniffed the air.

The blonde's blood ran cold as the squeak of the sponge filled the silence. She felt sweat drip down between her shoulder blades under the intense gaze across from her. She sighed. "I need it to decompress from everything."

"Decompress from what?" Rachel's voice was sharp with warning of anger to come. She was always angry; to Quinn it felt like she was living the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Rachel slid the last dish into the dishwasher to dry and Quinn just watched her. "I can't escape so why should you be able to." The brunette whispered after a moment as she turned to dry her hands.

She knew Rachel was petrified of the future, and her sharp angry motions and furious words were the only manifestation she could summon to alleviate the anguish she felt. "I'm sorry. Don't be angry." The blonde whispered. "I'll stop." She moved toward Rachel, but thought better of it, knowing the smell of nicotine was still on her lips.

Quinn reached into the dishwasher to claim a freshly washed glass and poured herself a glass of juice. She regarded it as Rachel moved around the kitchen farther from her. "I know how you feel and these hormones will pass and stabilize." She stared into the red fruit punch.

"Don't play doctor with me." Came the cold reply.

Quinn took a sip tasting the mix of flavors in her mouth as it masked the stale cigarettes, using that moment to calm her rising anger. She turned to face the shorter woman and smiled tenderly despite the inside joke she was digging angry claws into.

Quinn's job was one of the things Rachel suddenly hated. The blonde had gone from being a support to a know-it-all enemy. "I'm not," She soothed. "I felt like that when I was pregnant with Beth."

The wave that was Rachel's emotions shifted dizzyingly, almost as fast as the normally happy brunette. Instead of distant bitterness, she flew into an emotional deluge. Her face crumbled. "Why won't you make love to me anymore?" She made busy hanging the kitchen towel to hide her face from Quinn as she started crying.

Quinn had been taking another sip of her juice and she coughed on it, unable to anticipate this awful place Rachel was taking her to. "What?"

"I would've had sex with you in high school when you were pregnant." Rachel turned back wiping at her eyes, and dramatically struggling for composure.

Quinn's head was spinning. "Wait, what are you talking about?"

She moved toward Rachel and tried to hug her, but the brunette shied away just out of reach. Rachel left the room, circling the dining room table on her way toward the family room beyond. Quinn took up her position leaning over the cherry wood table. "I think you are beautiful. I have just been working a lot and you aren't yourself right now, baby everything is okay."

She sighed at the expressionless face before her. "I'll do whatever you need." Quinn resigned, her eyes softening and offering a small smile on her lips. "If you need that, I'll give it to you."

It made Rachel cry harder, tears leaking from her eyes. "I don't want you to do it because **I** want it, but because **you** want it." Quinn felt terrible, like she had been ignoring what Rachel needed. It was a familiar pain she felt and she was about to apologize, but Rachel continued. "I wanted it, even though you whored around in high school and broke my heart."

Quinn felt like she had been kicked in the gut. Her wife's pretty little mouth had just called her a whore.

Quinn fixed her eyes on Rachel's angry face and she realized the brunette meant it. "Whoa, hold on a minute." She felt color cruise up her face in embarrassment and outrage. "Don't say that to me."

Rachel was crying, her voice breaking. "Why not, it's true."

"It is not true!" Quinn valiantly calmed her voice and the stampede of emotions that made it hard to breathe, "That was one of the worst things I have ever had to do in my life."

The brunette lowered her volume, but her inflection cut like a knife. "You shouldn't have done it in the first place." She folded her arms over her chest defensively, her voice betraying the years of pain. "If you loved me you wouldn't have done that!"

Louder she cried, slamming her fist on the table between them in accent of her words, "How could you?"

Quinn felt her chest unhinging. "I can't tell you why? For gods sake Rachel, get a grip!" She was exasperated and broken. She wished she could say something to abate the pain she could feel across from her. "We are talking about stuff that happened years and years ago." At that thought she got a little angry. "You have to get over it."

"I'll never get over it." There was finality in her words. "Ever!"

Quinn snapped. She white knuckled the table top until she could hear it creak. "Then what do you want me to say." She hissed low and dangerously. "Everything I have done in my life has been for you." She felt her heart quivering in her chest. "Everything, and I do mean everything, I did so we could have a future." The admonishment hurt and she tried to express it without losing her mind.

Rachel turned away and laughed bitterly, "Seems to me like you just wanted to get laid in that instance, so don't pretend that it was for any other reason." Her voice was cavalier.

That was all that Quinn could take. After everything she had done and been through she wouldn't tolerate it, not this. Never.

She moved into the living room and powered toward Rachel, her mouth running without her mind. "You don't know shit about shit so don't even do this right now." She growled exasperated. "You are just hurting me to hurt me now, and I am sorry but I'm not going to let you do that."

The brunette wheeled on her, pooling tears in her eyes splashing to her cheeks. "Kinda how you hurt me for the sake of hurting me in high school?" She poked Quinn in the chest, her short nails clipping painfully against Quinn's breastbone. "Or how about elementary school? You aren't so tough now that you aren't bullying me around."

"Shut up." Quinn stated definitively, the warning in her voice a clear indication of how tired she was of this same fight over and over. "Stop hurting me for the sake of making yourself feel better. I'm so tired of this guilt trip." Quinn moved away to sit on the sofa. She buried her head in her hands, anything to stop her from saying the things she wanted to say. Rachel didn't understand the battle Quinn had fought, and she never would.

Rachel continued, pressing down on the sensitive underbelly she had found. Her normally gentle hands crushed the bone between her hand and Quinn's heart. "Well I'm tired of trying to follow in your fucking steps Quinn." She came closer, leaning down to spit words against Quinn's head, swirling the blonde strands with her punctuated words. "I'm tired of being perfect because I'm not. And I don't want **that** person to come back now, now that you have **this** over me."

Quinn uncovered her face and stared up at Rachel. She shook her head at the words. "Have **our** baby over you?" She laughed mirthlessly and dismissed Rachel's paranoia without thought.

"You are so fucking crazy it's a joke."

Quinn didn't see it coming; how could she have? Rachel had never hurt anyone so Quinn never even thought of it as a possibility. However, in the next instant she felt the blaze of skin against her own and a prickle of nerve endings across the left side of her face. It wasn't the slap that hurt the most though, or the buzzing pop she felt in her left eye, but the fact that **Rachel** had hit her. And she had done it hard enough to make her see stars for a moment.

Quinn couldn't even believe it. She scrambled to her feet, words flying out of her mouth as she felt her body coil. "You hit me?" Rachel backed away, her hand still held firmly, shock written all over her face, like she couldn't believe what had just happened. "**Hit** me? Hit **ME**!" Quinn's voice grew louder and louder until she felt like it was shaking the ceiling. "I swear to G**od** if you weren't pregnant I would sock you in the fucking face for that!"

Rachel backed against the wall of the living room and Quinn grabbed her wrists in iron fists. Her eyes flickered with cold and fury as she wailed her question, shivering in rage. "How dare you!"

Rachel didn't speak, and Quinn was so angry she shook her, Rachel's head thumping against the wall dully; her arms limp against Quinn's strong grasp. The blonde pressed her face in close, scoring the shorter woman before her with wild hazel eyes. "All I do is work tirelessly for you!"

She gnashed her teeth together in a bitter smile, "for us!" She threw Rachel's arms to the side and grabbed her face pinning her vice tight fingers around Rachel's jawbone, "for all of us!"

The realization of those words, once spoken so long ago in her office, washed over her and sucked the strength out of her frame. Quinn felt herself crumbling apart, poised to shatter to pieces at the sheer magnitude of the difference. They had once been said with such love, and now – such hate. That is what she felt rolling around in her belly making her sick. In that moment, poised between violence and sorrow she hated Rachel's face. She hated the horrified look on the features before her and how the kindness she had afforded, had been sorely abused.

"…and all of it, for what?" Quinn spat angrily, her mouth working around the words; her lips numb from the rush of adrenaline she was scrambling to bottle away. "For what…" Her breath moved Rachel's hair as she pulled back at tearful brown eyes that sparked with pain. The fire in them sucked into a void at Quinn's words.

Absently Quinn continued, "So I could marry the love of my life and have her turn into the cruelest person I know." The blonde felt her heart break, understanding that maybe everything was meant to have happened the way they did. For a moment, she wished she were alone again drowning in misery over the woman she loved; the woman who had never exploited her love and patience.

The guilt over that thought overwhelmed her and she struggled for a breath, firming her lips into a line, flaring her nostrils as she fought to steady herself. She turned, desperate to get away and grabbed her coat and keys.

"Where are you going?" Rachel was moving from the wall, staring at her. Quinn didn't look back as soft footfalls followed her into the entryway. "Quinn?" Her voice was desperate, and pleading. "Wait! Quinn, wait!" She screamed and stopped at the wall to steady herself as the blonde dramatically slammed open the door.

Quinn turned back to regard her in stony silence. She remembered this look of pain, the same one Rachel had so many years before when they stood in her fathers' house and fought. These were just more angry bitter words that were causing Quinn to flee again.

"When the Rachel I fell in love with and fought for and would die for comes back," Quinn whispered slipping her coat on in much the same way she did that day. "Call me. Until then I don't want to hear from you."

Finally she had her coup de grace she had wanted; and it had the desired effect, as those words cut through the strings holding Rachel up and as Quinn shut the door the brunette collapsed in a pile of sobs.

Quinn didn't even care as she got into her Mercedes, the horsepower causing her to scream out the driveway. All she could think was, if Rachel thought she was the master of hurtful things, she had better think again. Quinn threw the car into drive and without a backward glance, drove into the night.

She made it a grand total of five miles before she felt the air sucked from her chest with a force that brought tears to her eyes. Quinn steered the car to the side of the road, putting the hazard lights on. She realized as she replayed leaving, that she shouldn't have said what she did. They had grown so similar to one another, grown into one another, trading pieces of eachother's spirit.

Rachel was acting out to challenge what they had, to test if it was as stable as she hoped it was. Quinn released a shaky breath and flexed her hands on the wheel dropping her head to rest between them. And Quinn had raged out the door in true diva fashion.

She had wanted to tell Rachel everything so that the brunette would realize the sacrifices she had made for her. She wanted to tell Rachel that she was the only person who had ever made her feel whole. But Quinn knew that whatever she said would be twisted, because that was **her** way. And Rachel had learned well from her.

Then there were times that Quinn forgot what life she was living. There was this Rachel and her Rachel, but then it was this Rachel again and the two images were blurring in her mind. Quinn shook away the guilt that drowned her. She felt a frayed part of her sanity rear its head and she screamed into the interior of the car.

Screamed for Rachel.

For their baby girl.

For her broken disjointed existence.

But mostly her rage and pain was for herself, and the loss of a twinkling pair of brown eyes that had, just by loving her, shattered her entire existence.

Quinn focused on the road and rested her hand on the shifter. She attempted to pull away from the curb, but turned the engine off instead.

And she cried alongside the dark road laid out before her.


	16. The Real Life

Chapter 15

**The Real Life**

October 9th, 2025 (7 years more)

Quinn stared hard at the amber liquid in her glass. She saw it, but didn't. The liquor burned her throat and balmed her heart as she drank it down in a gulp.

The phone beside her on the bar counter trilled and Quinn scrambled for it.

Not Rachel. She set it down. It had been two weeks. She had been sleeping in a hotel for two weeks. She couldn't believe it. Quinn rested her elbows on the bar and ran tired hands through her blonde hair.

She felt guilty, but worse than that, Rachel didn't. Quinn felt like that realization might kill her. No matter what harsh words she might have ever said, she almost immediately apologized because she knew what they had was something special. The sheer fact that her wife didn't, or couldn't – or wouldn't made alcohol taste that much better.

Feedback startled her as a microphone squealed to life. She lifted her head, hoping for a moment it was Rachel. She equated every stage, every song and every melody with the raging brunette and her expressive eyes. But it wasn't Rachel, just a band sliding in to perform at the back of the bar.

Quinn watched the blinding lights power up and the house lights mute slightly.

"You havin' another?" The bartender asked sliding up and glancing at her.

"Yeah," Quinn whispered, not turning away from the band. She was lost in thought as her eyes followed their forms.

_The optical illusion of backlighting left Quinn breathless as her wife knelt on the stage, her form thrown into shadow as a bright light seared behind her; outlining her in white. Her light clothing hid nothing as the gentle curve of her hip and shoulders blocked through the white cotton gown she wore. It was so delicate and well known to Quinn, but the image in that moment was incredibly powerful._

_Symbolic of the character's open and vulnerable characteristics._

_Not unlike the real woman behind the character. A voice whispered off stage, words of hurt and heartache, and in response Rachel shifted her body infinitesimally, seemingly to crumble against the words, and then she lifted her head as an exaggerated breath surrounded the performance hall._

_It was a sound full of mourning and pain, sorrowful toward the words spoken off stage. The light shifted, bathing Rachel in golden light from the front, and she sang._

The light in Quinn's mind seared into the light before her; it warped and bent into reality, leaving her alone in a bar- again. Her glass was full beside her and she wrapped her hand around it, seeping solidity from it.

The band tapped out a count on the drums and then started a soft bluesy song. Quinn loved blues music. She frowned and turned away. She looked at her phone, hopefully.

Nothing.

Maybe she should be the first to bridge the gap. The blonde let go of a breath. No, not this time. She had tried so hard to be patient. She took the punishment of years of silence. She never fought back, not once. She didn't even fight when Rachel had traveled to Germany to perform, leaving Quinn alone for a month. Even though the brunette knew Quinn needed her, she had left on an impromptu whim.

She was so selfish, and ego driven now. Quinn didn't know what had happened.

The blonde drank her drink and twisted the glass in her hand as the bourbon burned her throat and nose. No, she smiled ruefully, she knew what had happened. She had spoiled the greedy side of Rachel and without balance, she had grown into the ego she had always had.

And the baby was giving her a reason to be afraid. It wasn't just about her anymore. Quinn sighed at the tangled mess she had created.

But there were moments of perfection where Rachel rose to the challenge and became the woman Quinn needed. Her hazel eyes pooled with tears.

_Dinner. It was just dinner. The blonde continued her mantra as she sat across the table from her mother and father. They had flown out to New York and Quinn couldn't remember why she had agreed to do this. Rachel was there as well, her face set in a firm mask of pleasant falseness._

"_So." Her father announced into the frozen mosaic._

"_Yes?"_

"_Nothing."_

"_Okay." Quinn returned the volley of single word responses. She felt perspiration beading on her skin as her irritation enflamed and her food cooled._

_Beside her Rachel shifted uncomfortably. Quinn's father was fixing Rachel with cold eyes. They drifted down to her ring finger, and the insane magnitude of sparkle in her wedding ring. It almost seemed Hollywood fake with how much in that one moment it glowed. It became the biggest brightest pink elephant in the room._

_His eyes followed Rachel's hand as she slid it over Quinn's. "Beautiful, isn't it?" She enunciated through the angst Quinn knew she felt. "Do you want to hear about the wedding?"_

_Her father growled, "No." Her mother didn't raise her eyes._

"_Well, you are going to hear it anyway." She said sharply. "Because frankly sir, if you can't cope with our happiness, then you don't deserve to be a part of it."_

What a moment that had been. Quinn remembered Rachel's face, so stern and angry, yet beautiful and expressive. And her parents had listened to the story as Rachel told it. Quinn swore she saw her mother smile for a moment as the brunette recounted the reception at Santana's restaurant.

Quinn reached for her phone, wiping the tears in her eyes. Her fingers rattled out a message and she debated and hit send.

Her drink was full again. Had she ordered another? How much had she drank? Did it matter? She downed another half a glass before her phone announced its presence. She opened the chat session request.

_What can I do, Quinn?_ The phone asked of her. She could almost hear Santana's voice. The Latina had grown into a powerful business woman. She opened a chain of restaurants and even had one out in New York that Rachel and she had attended the opening for.

_Make my heart stop hurting. _She typed back dramatically and hit send. There was no immediate answer. Quinn stared at the phone until it surprised her and the call came through.

"Hello?" She answered awkwardly.

"Only Rachel can do that for you." Santana whispered making Quinn cry. She covered her face with her hand. Why had she drunk so much, she had always been a sloppy emotional drunk?

"I know, but she won't. She hasn't." Quinn sighed struggling to control the whine in her voice. "It's been so long."

"Do you want me to come out there?" She asked gently, in the background Quinn heard Brittany's voice. She was helping their son Alex learn addition.

"Tell Brittany that two plus two is four and not eighteen." She joked. The laughter on the other end of the line was worth the deflection. She wanted someone to be with her. She would have said yes if she didn't do something. "No, Santi, I'm gonna be okay." Quinn stared down at the bar, swirling her fingers in patterns until she realized it was Rachel's name. She flattened her hand against the marred wood. "I'm okay." She reiterated.

"Do you want to come out here? I could pick up a flight for you tonight." The once hard young woman had become incredibly soft, her motherly side rising up to make Quinn feel better. "It would be so nice to see you again and spend time with you. Brit and I both miss you, both you and Rachel," She corrected, "I just think you might need time. Its hard when two people in love fight."

Quinn drew her eyes to the door, wanting nothing more than to go running through it, to her car and drive home. "What do you do to make it better?" She asked honestly.

Santana laughed and Quinn knew she was looking over at her family because when her voice came through the phone it was a little distant. Quinn knew they were looking at one another. "I tell her I'm sorry, no matter who started it, and I take comfort in knowing that we aren't going to break if we yell and scream at one another." Her full attention came back to Quinn as she lowered her voice. "But that only works if the other person feels the same way. You can't hold a marriage together alone."

"I know that." Quinn's throat tightened. "I know."

She continued to stare at the doorway as people milled in and out, vanishing into the periphery of her view. "Quinn, we love you and are here if you need us."

"Thank you." She whispered, "I'm gonna go." She swallowed her emotion. "I love you guys too. Give Brit and Alex kisses."

"Oh Quinn." The phone buzzed as she was about to hang up. "Get a taxi sweetheart, please. I don't want to worry." And her comforting voice vanished.

Quinn set the phone down and it rattled against the wood; she grabbed her glass. She hated she found so much comfort in that distant voice. She tilted her head back and lifted the glass to her lips. All at once her eyes caught a flash of brilliance and Quinn stared up at the ceiling and blinked. She set it back down, untouched.

Across the room, between two dark figures, she had seen a smile so bright and earnest it had stung. She fully turned to the spot, sliding down off her stool. She regarded the space with bated breath and as the bodies broke she saw Rachel's face.

She was looking at her.

They met eyes. All at once, emotion crashed through her has Rachel slipped between college students on a path toward her. Her hair was pulled back, glasses on, eyes red and swollen. She had a sweatshirt swathed around her, looking like she was the Rachel from ten years before; the high school sweetheart that had stolen her heart.

Rachel spared no pretense to the people around, her lips hitting Quinn's with passion and apology. The frames between them creaked as she pressed them against the bridge of Quinn's nose. She didn't linger long enough as she pulled back and took off her glasses. "I have to tell you something."

Quinn nodded, but instead of sitting down Rachel slipped toward the back of the bar. She hopped the stage between sets and grabbed the microphone stand. She adjusted it as a few people turned to regard her.

Rachel slid up to the microphone. She squinted against the oddly angled light that shot right into her face. She shaded her eyes with her hands. "Quinn… This is for you." Her eyes found the blonde and she lowered her hand.

Rachel didn't smile, she was in diva mode. Quinn knew she just needed to know that she was there. The turned to the band and after a few moments the music started with a hushed queue. Soft strings and piano chords rose up and the bar fell silent. It was an old song, one these kids had probably never heard. The guitarist slid his fingers into patterns, drawing an electric arpeggio that tickled familiarity to Quinn's senses and sounded like the ticking of a clock.

She patted a gentle rhythm to the song against her thigh and closed her eyes.

**The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight**

She paused as the music continued.

**Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time  
I am here still waiting though i still have my doubts  
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out**

She opened those perfect eyes, baring the truth of her sung words. A sliver of emotion pierced her face and shot right into Quinn's chest from her position. The single drum and high hat picked up, accented the gentle tone of her voice. The piano blocked chords that padded urgency behind the lilting voice.

**I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
With a broken heart that's still beating**

The rhythm shuffled and she placed a hand around the microphone, lifting her eyes a little above the heads of the crowd, staring into the light.

**In the pain, there is healing  
In your name… I find meaning**

She quirked a small smile as the music swelled around her, tempo pulling the lazy lyrics along. She pleaded through her expressive voice.

**So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on  
I'm barely holdin' on to you**

_They were dancing in the dark. Quinn smiled, happy that her knee didn't hurt any longer. She buried her nose into Rachel's hair as the laptop playlist repeated her favorite song. Here in the shadows she was in bliss. And with her house, and wife, and favorite song playing over and over; how could she not be. The brunette kissed her neck softly with a smile as Quinn grabbed for her hand and twirled her away. The music swirled and the rhythm started drumming in her bones._

**The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head  
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead**

The words meant so much to Quinn. She wasn't an open book and maybe she should have been. She wasn't real. She was just half of who she was. Again, she was picking and choosing the pieces of her life that made it real. The music was soft again, tauntingly delicate.

**I still see your reflection inside of my eyes  
that are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life**

And Rachel wanted her to give all of that. Her voice held the note as crystal and clear as she had ever heard. Then she launched into the chorus again.

**I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
with a broken heart  
that's still beating**

She accented, the words untying the bindings around Quinn's broken heart.

**In the pain, is there healing?**

She asked the question, her eyes falling to Quinn's face. She had known this whole time that something was missing and incomplete. That Quinn had been struggling to put up a barrier. There was no pop in a relationship without the fizzle too. Quinn felt the breath stalling in her lungs at the utter depth she had been read.

**In your name I find meaning  
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on  
I'm barely- holdin' on to you**

She held the last note, crescendoing and throwing gravel into her voice. Quinn blinked back tears that pricked and stung her eyes, hearing the emotion in her normally strong tone. The band entered the song again building off a drum beat and twining music around Rachel's voice.

**I'm hangin' on another day  
Just to see what you will throw my way  
And I'm hanging on, to the words you say**

A dramatic pause, of faith and believe and honest admission.

**You said that I will… will be okay…**The music left her to sing acapella, alone; naked before the crowd of people who were silent and unmoving. They too knew this was something to behold. This was her Rachel. Exposed as she always was where her music was concerned.

**The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone**

**I may have lost my way now, haven't forgotten my way home**

And back the band came, music crashing like waves over the stage. Rachel grabbed the microphone again, moving with the rhythm, immersed in the churning of spectacular unity that literally made Quinn want to scream as it rushed into her, stitching her back together.

**I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing  
with a broken heart that's still beating  
In the pain, there is healing  
In your name I find meaning  
So I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on**

Rachel fixed her eyes on Quinn tightening her hand around the microphone to add strength to the imagery. Her emotion drained out of her through her voice. The rock coarseness in her voice dripped from her lips, seducing Quinn's senses.

**I'm barely holdin' on to you. I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on, I'm holdin' on,**

Her voice cracked a little, but only Quinn would have been able to tell. She was wounded, they both were. And she was so right that it didn't matter as long as they were together. Holding on.

Always.

Rachel beat out a drumming rhythm in air before her as her stage presence took back over. She gathered herself and let her voice go, making love to every note as she slipped through the words.

**I'm holdin' on to you**

The word change didn't go unnoticed by Quinn as the bar erupted around them. And as the music faded out and the band started applauding, in that revealing moment, Quinn's Rachel was back in her life and her heart was mended.

Her wife smiled and then covered her face in embarrassment from the cheers.


	17. Christmakkah

A/N: I owe you two chapters :)

* * *

Chapter 17

**Christmakkah**

December 24th, 2030 (1 year, two months more)

Quinn always seemed to have epiphanies in the shower where the water was a warm sheet of silence and she was alone to break down. No one asked questions as she cried against the cold tile, no one judged her. She didn't feel weak, she didn't feel insane like she often did; she felt real.

This recent moment of clarity was brought on by the fact she had accidentally touched herself, rousing her body to attention in a sweet whine of arousal. And she kept going, until her mind was filled with Rachel's eyes and it sucked the heat from her body and washed her ardor down the drain.

She crashed from the near boiling peak to a low that just about dragged her to the shower floor. She found comfort against the wall, the cool tile soothing her forehead as the tears burned her cheeks. She felt guilty that she could still think about sex. Her body wanted it and she let Rachel take her almost every night, but her heart was breaking.

The brunette could sense it, Quinn knew. She had always known when something was missing or broken. She read Quinn like a book she had written herself. And Quinn hated herself for the dreams she couldn't escape and how she carried it into the precious moments she wanted to enjoy.

She was going to lose.

She was going to lose - huge.

Her nightmares chided her with outcomes to her well devised plans that were unalterable. That, coupled with the fact that she knew who it would be, left a bleeding hole in her heart. She would let Rachel go, because their daughter deserved the chance to live. Santana's wisdom echoed in her ears as the hot water rushed past her, 'I would sacrifice anything in my life for my children.' And this time she would have to face it all the way through.

The dark knowledge sat like a demon on her shoulder, stabbing her in the chest with every tick of the clock. Every look, every moment, every touch broke her further and further. There would be no escape this time. She had to take care of Emily and make sure that her baby girl grew up knowing she was loved. Grew up knowing how much her mothers' had loved her. It was Quinn's job to make sure that Emily never forgot Rachel.

With that thought, Quinn slipped to the tub, her legs giving out. She didn't know where she would find that strength. She felt like she couldn't walk or breathe. The bathroom door opened, levying a breath of cold air into her reality.

"Hey baby?" Rachel brushed into the bathroom, a dark figure on the other side of the frosted shower door.

Quinn flinched but didn't move from her spot. "Yeah?" She cleared her voice of the husky emotion.

"Better get out soon, the party is at seven thirty and its almost six thirty now." Quinn could see she was looking at herself in the mirror, her figure shifting in patches of black dress and tan skin. "We still have to put the hors d'oeuvres together and I need help watching Emily's gift."

"Okay." She acknowledged from her position. She felt drained and she rested her face against her arms as the water spiraled down around her. "Does your dad need a ride from the airport?" Quinn asked, hoping he didn't.

"No, Santana and Brittany got a car and he is riding with them." Her dress rustled as she moved. The show door opened, chilling her skin. "Why are you sitting in the tub?"

Quinn lifted her head to the dark brown eyes framed in confused brows. "Why are you being a voyeur?"

Rachel smiled a little. "Cause you have a hot ass, which I would like to look at, but you're sitting on it." She cocked her head to the side, her drop diamond earrings winking. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Quinn gathered her feet under her. "I just need to rinse off and I'll be out."

"Okay." The brunette hesitated. Quinn could see Rachel weighing the choice to continue probing, but graciously she let it go. "I love you."

Quinn shoved her head under the water like she didn't hear the words. After a moment, the door shut, sealing her away in a haze of rebuilt steam.

Ten years. Ten years they had lived and loved and dreamed together. They had fought for every single inch of beauty they had in their lives. They had bared the best and worst of eachother's souls and they still loved one another. That was the feat that meant so much. It was one thing to cohabitate with someone you cared for, but to love them through all of that. It was the greatest pride and pain the blonde knew.

Quinn wrenched the faucet, turning the water icy cold. She shivered as it burned her and prickled against her warm skin. She gritted her teeth. The blonde wished she were dead, or better had never gotten the chance to come back. She couldn't do this again, wouldn't do it again. She shut off the water.

The warm air of the bathroom was a balm on her skin as she toweled dry. She went through the motions of getting dressed, slipping into a form fitting red dress and drying her hair. She curled the ends of her straw strands, dabbed on a modicum of makeup and a spritz of perfume and she was almost ready.

Rachel's voice drifted into the bedroom as she sang Christmas carols in the kitchen. Quinn sat on the edge of the bed listening, feeling the chill of a lifetime of misery overtake her. She pulled out her Jim Choo heels and stared down at the strappy leather. They had been a gift from Rachel's first check as an established Broadway performer. They were nicer than any piece of clothing she had ever owned.

She slipped them on as Emily wandered in dressed in a little green velvet dress with lace. Her little black Mary Janes clicked as she danced around. "You look pretty mommy." The little girl offered moving closer to touch the glass earrings Quinn wore.

"Thank you sunshine." Quinn smiled, through the pain she felt. "Is anyone here yet?"

"No, Mommy is cooking in the kitchen."

"We should go help, yeah?" Quinn hugged her daughter gently allowing the little figure to scramble into her lap. "We wanna make sure everything is nice for mommy tonight right?"

"Right." Another hug that softened a little and like her mother, Emily seemed to just know something was wrong. "Don't be sad mommy."

The words pricked Quinn's eyes and she fought the threat of tears. "I won't be." The similar colored eyes pinned her with infinite knowing.

"What's taking you so long Quinn?" Rachel asked from the hallway, snapping Quinn's face from Emily's hard enough to make her neck hurt. She held a spatula in her hand and stopped short, looking ashamed for interrupting.

"Nothing angel, we were going over the plans for the night." Quinn let Emily slide to the floor and she followed both dark haired girls out of the room.

Rachel was a phenomenal cook. She had already made half a dozen things and yet she still had three more timers running for different dishes that were baking. Quinn sniffed the air appreciatively. "God I love a woman who can cook." She whispered directing her eyes to the fruit plate. She stole a grape from the arrangement.

"I saw that." The brunette chirped without turning from her place. "Can you tackle the olives and set the crackers up on that plate?" She pointed to a different crystal set up.

"Why do you always give me the hard stuff?" She teased. Beneath her a small Labrador puppy scrambled across her feet.

Emily followed without pretense, crawling between Quinn's legs and then running into the other room. The blonde regarded the retreating figure. "That is going to be an interesting addition."

Rachel slipped on her oven mitt casting a forlorn look over her shoulder as a little growl and a childish laugh rang from the other room. "If she is chewing on my father's tablecloth I swear I'll kill her."

Quinn laughed. "She wouldn't. It has enough ironing starch to deter her, guaranteed."

The blonde dodged the evil eye she got by opening the can of black olives and spreading them in their own little section of the crystal plate. She did the same with the green olives, piling them perfectly right before the doorbell rang.

Harley, the puppy, bailed woefully at the sound. "Oh jeez." Rachel whispered. "That is going to be fun."

Quinn went to the door chuckling.

Her father in law breezed in, donned in a thick scarf. His bald head covered by a knit cap. Her looked like an ad for Abercrombie. "Where is my pretty little Emily!" He announced.

At the sound of his deep bass voice Emily flew into the room with puppy in tow, which she promptly set down. "Grand dad!" She screamed, flying into his embrace.

"Hey Quinn." Santana entered a beat behind, sliding a warm embrace around her friend. She handed over a wine bottle.

"Oh thanks." The blonde juggled the bottle as she found her arms full of Brittany and a crushingly happy embrace. "And thanks for that too."

Emily called happily. "Sarah! Alex!"

The eldest Lopez, didn't lift his head from his cell phone, mearly raised a hand in welcome. Brittany put a hand over the face of the phone, "So help me, if you don't put it away and say thank you and hello I'm breaking it."

Alex sighed heavily. "Thank you for inviting us." He announced with a roll of the eyes that put Rachel's to shame. "and hello."

"That's better."

"Come in from the cold you guys, Quinn shut the door." Rachel moved into the room and dove into her father's embrace, his large coat all about covering her whole frame.

All at once there was conversation floating around the room. Blake showed up a few minutes later, followed by Rachel's coworkers who sprinkled a little bit of insanity into the mix.

To Quinn it felt like the house was bursting at the seams with holiday happiness. She just couldn't find a way to allow it to touch her. She moved around automatically, smiling absently at the words people wee saying. She stared at everyone's lips, watching them move but failing to hear the words.

As the night wore on she found her melancholy deepening. They lit the Menorah's candles, Rachel's soft voice warbling a prayer. After ten years it never ceased to amaze her how different her wife sounded when she spoke a different language. It was like another person inhabited her for those moments.

And then the evening was over. Santana and Brittany had gone to a hotel, carting a very angry Alex who had gotten his phone taken away after all, and a cranky Sarah who had cried most of the way through dinner. Jerome, Rachel's father was set up in Emily's bedroom, though he had been happy with the sofa. Quinn had refused; there was no sense in his being miserable on the couch when Emily still found plenty of excuses to end up in Rachel and her bed most nights anyway.

The candles were burning low now; Quinn watched the hypnotic dance as she ran her hands through Emily's hair. The little girl had gone to sleep an hour before, but her mothers just didn't have the heart to wake her.

The menorah shimmered a little, and the end candle went out as their central heat kicked on, warming against the winter cold. "There goes one." Rachel whispered from across the sofa. She sounded sad, and Quinn gazed at her through the fog of sorrow she herself felt.

Quinn nodded, slowing her motions in Emily's shoulder length hair. "I like when our holidays overlap. It makes me feel so happy."

Her wife smiled softly in the dim light, her eyes catching the candlelight warmly. "I do too. Wish it happened more often." She reached over and pulled up her gift, squinting to read. "God, I'm going blind." She hesitated, pulling the item closer and then pushing it away. She abandoned it beside her on the cushion. "Thank you for the cook book, I'm sure the recipes are wonderful."

"Its so dark in here I can't even see Em's face." Quinn comforted. She grabbed Rachel's toes, squeezing them affectionately. "But, yes, you are blind." She produced a big cheesy smile. "And you are welcome."

"Shut up." Rachel laughed softly getting up from her position and disappearing into the kitchen. Quinn listened idly as she moved around in the other room. She resumed her motions in the little girl's hair.

So many pieces of her family felt like they were sliding away from her. She was losing her grip, losing her mind, losing everything that mattered to her. For the second time in as many minutes she wished she were dead.

She stilled her hands in Emily's hair. She was such a coward. Quinn closed her eyes and palmed her face in her hand.

Outside carolers were singing silent night, and the warm buzz of their voices did nothing to assuage the cold bitterness in her heart.


	18. Wrecked

Chapter 18

**Wrecked**

February 6th, 2032 (2 weeks left)

Quinn found herself driving as the world continued moving without her. She sat in the front of her car shifting it into fourth and revving the engine. She cut off a cab and the curse on his lips was the same curse on hers. "Fuck."

She blazed down the street, clipping a no parking cone and sending it flying across the sidewalk. She didn't care – not anymore.

She moved the vehicle like a madwoman, hitting sixty, using her feet to drive the clutch soundlessly between gears. She slammed her finger on the stereo button, bringing raging music onto the speakers. She drowned in the all encompassing sound, losing herself in the apathetic redundant pound of drums and bass guitar.

The light up ahead was red and she gunned the engine, barreling down to the intersection. She held her breath as her feet became weightless and she closed her eyes. And soundlessly she slid between the traffic, leaving the cars on either side of her to sit in stunned silence.

She screamed angrily. She couldn't even escape.

Four more blocks and she tried again, narrowly missing the back end of a furniture truck, but missing all the same.

The music pounded in her head, making her heart quiver as the five thousand dollar sound system proved its worth. She passed a row of parked cars and set off the alarms with the pound of her bass.

Three more blocks and Quinn was angling toward the shoreline. The setting sun fell over the pylons and cranes from behind her, lighting them in gold. She checked the bridge, it was raised and she slowed to a stop at the bottom of the road, skidding to the left and cutting off a group of pedestrians who jumped out of her way.

She gripped the steering wheel as the Mercedes shuddered under her and then fell silent. She slammed her hands down until her palms bruised. She kicked the door open and the promptly kicked a dent in the side of the silver car. It hurt – a lot.

Quinn slammed her hands on the hood of the car and then turned and started walking. Fuck this whole world, she swore to herself. Nothing mattered. Why had she been brought back? What kind of cheap joke was this? She crossed her arms against the cooling of the night as the shadows stretched longer.

She walked for what felt like forever finally pacing out to the edge of the river that opened into Upper Bay. She stopped at the rail. A ferry blared warning as it roped past Governor's Island. "Yeah fuck you too." She whispered.

Quinn rested her hands on the cold bars and stared down into the murky water. She could make out her outline reflected in the water. "Why did you bring me back?" She pleaded lifting her eyes to the patchy clouds in the sky. "Why?" She growled.

The unyielding city pulsed around her, but no answer came, nothing; just an ever darkening sky and the golden outlines around the dusty clouds. Quinn tightened her hands on the rails, until her forearm muscles burned and her palms glittered with paint chips.

"How could you bring me back and let me suffer like this? To watch her die again." Quinn got exponentially louder until she shook with rage. "Fuck everything I ever believed in You!"

She was forsaken, surely. Left and abandoned alone to live her misery again. She pressed her hair out of her face as a cold wind rattled her bones. She had no coat, no purse. Just a set of keys that went to car that didn't work, and a pack of cigarettes she had sworn she wouldn't smoke again. "To hell with it all."

The ferry was disappearing down the channel and Quinn lit a cigarette, leaning to watch it depart. "You have an extra one of those?"

A voice started her and she spun toward it to find a homeless man a few feet from her. His thick frame loomed over her and she leaned back against the rails, claustrophobic. "Yeah." She edged a firm voice and shook one free of her pack.

He took it between thick dirty fingers and took her lighter from the pack. He sparked it before him, his eyes coursing over her in those moments of cold light. Quinn felt her senses heighten at the veiled threat she felt.

"What are you doing way out here, lady?" He asked glancing around. "Ain't anyone out here." Her grinned a broken tooth smile, "cept you and me."

"Yeah well, what of it." She barked, what really did she have to lose anymore?

"Nothing at all, just curious. Sharing a talk and smoke with a pretty young thing." He grinned that yellowed smile again, blowing smoke into the hazy evening light. "You always come to dark lonely places and talk to yourself?" He edged pointing at his temple. "You crazy?"

He moved far enough away that Quinn couldn't smell him any longer and she released the breath she was holding. "Maybe I am." She bit off, turning with him as he picked up the rail next to her a few feet away.

"Crazy white women down in the ghetto talking to themselves." He pointed out over the water at the sky. "You ain't gonna find God here." He grinned. "You ain't gonna find him anywhere, child."

"Who says I was looking for him?" The blonde ran a hand through her hair and took another puff of her cigarette. She felt the burn in the deep pull on the filter and she blew it out. She wrapped her arms around her body.

He laughed at her. "Your screaming says so, lost as can be, pissing and moaning about your life." He snickered at her. "You're the one that can see what is happening, the rest of us just get only so far."

Quinn recoiled from his words, "What do you mean only so far?"

"Everything is staring you in the face." He seemed to suddenly become a little bit less coherent and a little crazier. "You're looking in the wrong place for your answers."

"The fuck you know about what answers I'm looking for?" Quinn yelled demanding a straight response.

He flicked the cigarette into the water, "Like I said, you ain't finding God out here." He turned abruptly and stumbled toward a trash can. Quinn followed him, dropping her smoke to burn out on the concrete.

"What do you mean?" She grabbed his coat sleeve and he shook her off angrily.

"I just wanted a cigarette, not a fucking puppy. Get away from me."

"Answer me." She tried again, and this time he wheeled on her. She thought he was going to push her, but his hand was too high for that. His fist connected with Quinn's jaw, shooting stars across the inside over her eyes as she felt the world topple. And she unceremoniously dropped to the pavement. She palmed the ground, feeling warmth spill into her mouth, and down her lip. She made to get up, but in the next instant a dirty boot was making contact with her face, throwing her into unconsciousness.

_It was dark. The smell of liquor rose up around her. She was sitting at a bar, drinking her way down into a fifth of scotch. Beside her a dark haired man was laughing and pointing at her._

_Quinn felt annoyance, if not anger at the motion. He looked familiar, but Quinn couldn't place it. He was talking between his laughs, "I hit that bitch and she was crying and said she didn't wanna see me." She realized he was boasting. His Rolex winked at her as he banged his fist on the counter in silent laughter at himself._

_Above the bar the news rolled and she focused on it, unable to escape the penetrating dark eyes beside her. This young man's face was twisted in hate._

"_I don't give a rats ass what she wants or thinks, no one breaks up with me."_

_Stock trading prices scrolled by. Beside her the man hammered back shots._

"_I'm gonna make her pay."_

_It was February 20th. It was the day her life had ended._

_With a start the blonde turned to see the man staring at her. His drunken mouth formed angry words as his face screwed up in anger. "Next bitch I see I swear to god I'm going get what I want."_

_And he got up. Quinn followed him, out the door and into his blue Audi. Then all at once it came back to her. She remembered him from the mug shots in the case file she had read a million times over. He had been gunning for someone, anyone to make him feel tough._

_And her precious Rachel had been in the way._

_He revved the engine and backed out of his spot, checking over his shoulder enough to be sure he didn't hit anyone. He peeled out, away from the bar, leaving the dim light of O'Hara's behind him._

_John Abrams was his name. A 21 year old party boy who always got what he wanted. He sped down the street, moving so quickly Quinn dug her nails into the dashboard. Three blocks more. He checked back and forth and gunned the first intersection. Two. He saw her. A dark bronzed goddess walking down the street._

_Quinn watched horrified as he slowed down as she passed. His eyes took her in and accosted her mentally. "Hey there sweetie, where you going?"_

"_I'm sorry?" Rachel's dark eyes turned in surprise. She moved closer._

"_I said, where're you going without me and in such a rush, sweetie."_

_Rachel cocked her head, "First off I'm not your sweetie. Secondly, I'm married so please do yourself a favor and move along." Rachel burred annoyed. And he peeled off._

_John lapped the block, taking a quick right and another, popping back out a block away, just as Rachel cut across the street._

_Quinn saw it before it happened. The snap. The breaking of something that makes people not quite human anymore. She screamed, but the sound of the engine drowned her out._

_Closer._

_And then she was there, and the images came together in daisies and blood. And John laughed as Quinn's world shattered._

Cold. So cold.

The blonde struggled to lift her head, but only managed to turn enough so when she threw up she didn't hit herself. Left recumbent position, she chided herself, rolling into a recovery position she knew from working in medicine. She couldn't open her eyes, and she shivered, making her head hurt more.

Rape. It was the first thing on her mind and it chilled her heart. Numbly she felt for her skirt, making sure it wasn't torn or pushed up. It wasn't. Quinn struggled with her eye lids, forcing her eyes to open. A drizzling of meek stars and building tops met her blurry gaze.

Quinn blinked, coughing the bile from the back of her throat. She spit. It tasted like blood. She felt around her mouth, noticing a significant tear in her gums on the left side. "Sonofabitch." She mumbled feeling the soft tissue between her teeth. She sat up slowly, wincing against the dizziness in her head. The wince made her aware of the puffiness in her face.

Everything hurt. Quinn had never been in a fist fight before, and the worst she had ever gotten hit was by Rachel years before. This – this was something else entirely. This was like getting hit by a Mack truck, but unmercifully living through it. She spit again.

Her head swam on her shoulders as she stumbled to her feet and collapsed against the trash can. She white knuckled the edge trying desperately to reset her body. She was shaking.

The images came back to her. John Abrams. This wasn't destiny, it was murder. She couldn't believe that he had gotten away with everything. Quinn pulled herself up using her fury as the strength to stand.

Somehow, Quinn didn't know how, she was able to make it back to her car. She fell into the side of it and opened the door with a weak grip.

She could control this. She could stop him. And she would. The thoughts raced through her mind as she pulled herself inside. She was dirty and bloodied and the silence of the interior screamed against the throbbing of her head. She leaned over a little, causing nausea to rise in her throat and wheeze her breathing. She got her hand around her cell phone and pulled it out of her purse.

Dimly she registered ten missed calls. She hit redial as she leaned back uncomfortably. The leather interior cradled her battered and bruised form. She winced, feeling the painful bump on the back of her head against the head rest.

"Oh God, Quinn. Where are you?" Rachel's voice shot through the phone. "I called the police. I thought something happened to you!" Her shrill fear filled tone was like bolts of lightening against her brain.

"I got kicked in the face. I'm okay." The blonde omitted the steps that had brought her to this place. "I need for you to come get me and call a tow for my car. I can't drive."

Rachel was crying in a panic. "Who hurt you? Oh baby, where are you?"

"At the channel by the bridge." Quinn squinted to try and read the street sign. "I'm on the shore access road, you know the one by the water." She felt numb and weak, she couldn't think of the name.

"I'm on my way." Quinn could hear the scramble of keys and clothing as Rachel donned a coat. "I'm calling the police back."

Quinn felt her consciousness slipping again and she locked the car door. Relief flooded through her, knowing Rachel was coming to rescue her. "I love you. I'm sorry I almost gave up." She drawled absently, slurring her words together.

"I love you. I'll be there in thirty minutes." Rachel was breathing hard into the phone as she was running to the car.

Dimly Quinn heard Emily's sleepy voice as Rachel loaded the child in the car. "Where are we going?"

Quinn didn't hear the words that followed as Rachel continued to bur into her ear. She just slipped into the warmth of the tone as the pounding of her head subsided and she was plunged into nothingness.


	19. The End

A/N: And the last chapter. Today is apparently a day for endings, since I ended WTHI as well... Thank you for reading and reviewing and enjoying.

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Chapter 19

Quinn ran.

She ran at full tilt, the pavement pounding under her feet. She had run this path a million time in her mind. She had played and replayed this moment, until she had no more tears to cry. However, as her feet burned against every footfall she knew this time it was real. And she cried.

Her lungs ached and her breath frosted from her mouth. It was so much colder now, this February in this world. The only warmth that seemed to penetrate her as she gulped frozen air into her chest was the flickering hope she felt that she could change the destiny that pushed her toward this wet street and the only option she had left.

That hope blurred her reality in tears she didn't know she had left to offer. So close… she was so close. She didn't dare check her watch, to waste a second, as she continued forward. She would stop it, she had to. She couldn't survive without her soul mate; Rachel was the only thing that made sense in any world. And even if she couldn't be with her, just knowing she was out there in the world, was the balm that made her able to keep moving.

And it was in knowing that, that her path was revealed. The reality was that Quinn didn't care if her dreams were real, if her visions were the truth. She couldn't control that. She couldn't control the actions of others, but she could control herself.

And perhaps she was always meant to do this.

Maybe, she reasoned she was always meant to sacrifice herself, because in truth what did she have to offer? What did her broken spirit have left to give to anyone anymore? All she had were wounds and scars that would never go away. Paltry pieces of humanity, frayed at best, from the years of torture. She had been locked in a world of polar extremes; a world of misery and joy that blinded her from normal emotions like happiness and peace.

If she were a better person she would have just enjoyed the time, but she couldn't because that wasn't her way. She couldn't stop the desire to fix things. **That** was her way. That was the flaw that brought her apart at the seams and forced her to face the world. She was a fighter and just like any good soldier she would lay down her life for the people she loved.

_Dawn._

_Instead of the herald of a new morning, it felt like a hammer of fate. Quinn was awake, watching Rachel sleep. The blinds cut tiger strips across the tan form tucked into cream sheets beside her. Quinn's hand caressed the curve of her face. She traced the beauty mark on her left cheek and then down her jaw. Quinn soaked up the peace in the features before her. She feared it could be the last time she saw such serenity._

_Quinn wasn't stupid. She knew that even though Rachel had nothing to do outside the house today, she would still end up leaving. The strange deadly mechanism that held Quinn's life in balance was whirling. The ball had already been tipped, spinning down the well that would carry it to connect with the button that would severe her life. It wasn't even Rachel's fault. It was just the roles they had to play._

_The blonde leaned against her free hand, cocooned in warmth within their bed. Her tears had all dried. Possible futures pounded behind her eyes as she stared at the peaceful face she loved more than her own life._

_Quinn breathed deep Rachel's sleepy breath, warm and soft across her face. She imagined the depth of her crystal clear eyes and how badly she just wanted to die looking in them. That was her greatest secret. The one she wanted to tell her on the street so many years before in the glow of a street lamp. She wanted to be the first to go so she could stare into her eyes. And even though Quinn had made up her mind on what she was going to do, she still wasn't sure she was ever going to have that._

_Her hand traced along the shadow patterns, her fingertips brushing the slight baby bump outlined in the sheets. Quinn firmed her hand along the gentle slope, caressing the valley between the pregnancy bulge and Rachel's hip bone. Five months more and Jamie would be born. She swallowed against the tightening of her throat as her emotional car wreck threatened another wave of tears. She loved them all so much._

_She leaned in slowly, letting her own breath mix with her wife's, feeling the heat radiating off a still cheek. She kissed her skin, hoping that somewhere in the brambles of Rachel's dreams she knew she was loved more than life itself. And that with every heartbeat Quinn lived and breathed the fragile fleeting warmth that shocked her soul._

_The blonde slipped from the blankets and went to her closet. She pulled free her white coat. As it slid from the hanger she ran her thumbs over the soft cotton material. She liked to believe that somewhere in the universe someone knew the sacrifices she had continued to make. She set the coat on the edge of the bed and got dressed. Her thoughts touched on her decision, her meager attempt to abate the future._

_Quinn would take the high road, the same way she had her whole life._

But all she had wanted to do was crawl back into bed and lay there beside Rachel and hold her, and never let go. Selfishly she wanted to smother her in a world of protection. She couldn't keep her forever locked away, Quinn knew. What guarantees were there that fate wouldn't claim her another day in a not so distant future?

So, she had let her go. And that was the trespass on her heart that had brought her to this moment. It was that cataclysmic minimalist motion that echoed in every pounding heartbeat in her chest and dared her to break stride as she ran. She had failed to keep her family safe and for that she would burn in hell.

She cut between cars, picking up the pieces of her broken heart once left scattered across this wet dreary road. She steeled herself and left that inaction in another time, her strength renewing. The world deserved her wife and daughters, needed them as a part of it. It didn't need her…

The blonde crossed the road without looking, leaving the intersection in a flail of horn honks and frightened outcries as breaks screeched. She doubled her pace, streaking past mirrored panes that haunted her with ghostly images of her body flying past. She conjured glances of surprise as she pounded past people on the street.

Quinn heaved her breath, squinting against the pain in her head as she pushed herself. Pushed herself to keep going. Pushed herself to stay strong. Pushed herself to be the only way she could be. Dogged, brave, selfless to the end as the seconds ticked down around her in a cascade of lightly falling rain.

She turned down the street, her stride breaking as her muscles gave out. Quinn grunted her frustration and panic as she slammed against a parked car and collapsed. She struggled to stand and cried as her body refused to comply. She begged and pleaded for it to move.

She just had to stand, just a few more feet and she could finish it. The blonde dizzily reached down for whatever strength she had left and pulled herself up. Promising the peace she could never find if she could just go a little further.

Quinn palmed the hood of the car as she saw Rachel. The sun kissed montage of everything that mattered in the whole world was fifty feet away. She was looking back and forth across the street and stepped out as the blue Audi rounded the corner.

Quinn screamed, the sound ripping the air around her in anguish dredged up from the depths of her spirit. "Rachel!"

The sound was enough to shatter time it seemed as Quinn moved forward, sliding into the street, her wife freezing to turn to her. Her coffee colored eyes focused on Quinn and then her head turned as she heard it. The growl of a car engine so close it seemed to have spawned from the ground beneath her.

Quinn was running, her joints grinding in protest as her muscles fired her forward. The blonde saw her wife's face twist from its normal beauty into a mask of horror that branded through Quinn's heart in the moments before Quinn got to her. And as the blonde collided with her in the street, everything clicked into place.

Her broken existence shored up the cracks in its façade, bringing her together into a moment of singular perfection. The blonde knew in that moment as their bodies connected and the shift of momentum rocketed Rachel away from harm that she had done what she was meant to do. There was no apology, no loving word, nothing but a single action that spoke more than the libraries of history. Quinn would give anything, do anything and risk everything for her family. It was that knowledge, screamed in her actions that renewed her soul and made her complete.

The blonde had expected Rachel to look confused about what was happening, but the fear in her face showed she knew. Quinn hadn't been prepared for the milliseconds that passed between them as Rachel screamed, her hands grappling to pull Quinn with her as she fell away, her fingers struggling to latch onto the smoothness of the blonde's arm and drawing red angry scratches in her panic. Rachel's love undeniable as her eyes lit with tears when their hands fell away straining toward one another. Quinn was looking at her, watching her fall to safety. She hoped her eyes and actions spoke the words she couldn't as the car's engine swallowed her reality.

The metal breathed heat on her before the car belatedly attempted to swerve and crushed her into nothingness. But Quinn didn't flinch, didn't move, and didn't cry. She embraced it as she had everything she had done in her life. It was all for the frozen uncried tears in the dark eyes of her best friend and lover.

And then the pain came like a wall of disjointed reality, coring her apart as the sinew in her body stripped from the bone and tore her to pieces within her own skin. She heard the sound of her skull snap like timber, her side splitting as her ribs fractured through the skin. It left her a broken ruined seemingly boneless heap in the middle of the road. Just as her wife had once been and would never be again.

She was one with the peace of darkness again and then blazing shooting colors blurred her mind. She could hear cracked glass crunching in her head as a nauseating shift lifted her from the cold ground.

"Quinn!" Rachel's voice was whipped with emotion and anguish. She was rocking the blonde in her arms, seesawing the broken bones against one another under Quinn's skin. And the blonde didn't care how much it hurt because she couldn't feel anything but the long strum of agony in her heart as Rachel screamed her name again and again like a broken mantra to God.

"Please don't leave me." Tears and rain washed away the blood, turning Quinn's hair rust in the wake of her life draining away. "Please, God, I love you. Please take me, please not you."

Quinn mercifully couldn't answer because she would have just cried trying to explain how in her heart one Rachel was worth a million of herself. Instead she just marveled at the image of Rachel above her, as the brunette tried to keep her there in the wonderful world they had created on this thin edge between one reality and the next. And really, as Quinn felt her heart slowing, it was all she had ever needed. One chance to make everything the way it should have been.

She was looking into her eyes, blessed with that final moment of perfection before the world began turning again.

A world where babies were born.

Where people fell in love.

And died.


End file.
